They each took a chair and I followed behind with the telescope. I felt all at once relieved and warmed by what Eric had shown Richard and by Richard’s regard for Eric’s enthusiasm. Richard even seemed guardedly proud. Although I hated Richard’s games of divide and conquer, he made me laugh when we all got back in the house. Harry was stretched out across the couch, watching television.
“What’s a mare, Harry?” Richard asked.
“What?” Harry pretended that he had been oblivious to our presence and used the remote to turn down the volume of the World Wrestling Federation matches.
“Mare,” Richard said, “what does it mean?”
“It’s an eel,” Little Precious said, and raised the sound again. “Who cares?”
“That’s moray,” I said.
“Yeah, mare means condemnation,” Eric said and laughed his way to his bedroom.
“Shut up, rat breath! What do you know?” Harry called out.
For once, Eric had the sense to ignore Harry. He wasn’t sure how he had won this tiny battle in the inch wars with Harry for Richard’s approval, but he had. I decided we needed more weekends like that.
I went to bed wondering how many stars were visible that night over the Edisto River. I made a guess that the number was in the trillions. There were no city lights to block them, so they all shone on a crisp night like shattered crystals, spectacular droplets across the deep cobalt. Eric would love that. I had a boy interested in the cosmos and made a note to myself to take him to South Carolina more often.
MISS LAVINIA’S JOURNAL
I never thought I’d see the day that I had to guard myself against my own children.That son of mine is driving me insane. It’s not bad enough that Raoul left me for another woman? Doesn’t Trip know that I’m upset? He should be happy—he never liked Raoul in the first place. For all the years I was married to Nevil, I was the dutiful spouse, the perfect hostess—and guess what? I’ve had more fun screwing the gardener than I ever had screwing my husband, although I was very devoted to him. Every woman should have a Latin lover at least once in her life. Legs in the air! Oh, dear me. Trip just made me so mad this afternoon. I am weary of being judged.
Nine
“Ain’t No Way, Babe . . .”
Manhattan, February 2000
YOU’LL have to speak up, Trip! There are about thirty people in the living room—all talking at once!” Richard, my cranky husband—cranky because he hates it when we entertain in our home—had just handed me the telephone. I pulled the cord around the paneled door into his study to talk to my brother, who only calls me when he wants something. “What did you say?”
“I said, I’ve had it! We have all had it with Mother!”
This wasn’t good. A telephone call from Trip made my stomach boil like I had just inhaled a whole jar of jalapeños. Reflux. I could feel it already.
“What’s wrong?” I said as calmly as I could.
“What’s wrong, she says to me like I call her every five minutes or something. I’ll tell you what’s wrong, Caroline. Mother is no longer capable of taking care of herself. She is mentally unstable, cannot handle her affairs, and she needs to be in an assisted-living environment. And immediately.”
Well. It had finally come to this, as I knew it would. I knew that one day, my dear brother—the quintessential good old boy—and that horrible wife of his would figure out a way to dispose of Mother.
“I don’t think so, Trip,” I said, slowly and evenly. I paused to let that sink into one of the many fissures of his cement skull and took a breath. “What’s happened to make you feel this way?”
“You know what, Caroline? I wish to hell that you wouldn’t talk to me like your English-slash-Hebrew husband talks to his psychotics. That’s what I wish.”
“I’m sorry that you feel that way. It was not my intent.” A bald-faced lie, if I ever told one. “Nevertheless, the solution to your problem does not lie in anti-Semitic sarcasm. If you’ve got a problem with Mother it’s not going to help you solve it if you insult my husband and me. Besides, I’m going to have to call you back.”
“I apologize. I do.”
“Apology accepted.”
“Caroline, she damn near shot my balls off this afternoon.”
“What on God’s earth . . . ?”
“I was putting my boat in the water and she mistook me for a poacher, or so she said. I think she had been talking to Johnny.”
“Johnny?”
“Yeah, as in Walker.”
“She drinks bourbon, but never mind. Was the sun over the yardarm?”
“Yes, but still . . .”
“How close did she come?”
“Close enough to scare me half to death.”
“Oh, Trip, come on. I may accept the fact that Mother was in the sauce, but I can’t believe she wanted to kill you. So why is this such a problem for you to handle? Mother has been a wild woman for years! You should be used to her by now.”
“You’re overlooking the point, Caroline.”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t have a problem with Mother, we have a problem with Mother.”
There wasn’t anything he could have said that would have made me feel more wretched. I needed to sit down or dissolve.
“Trip?” My heart was racing. “I’m going to call you back when our guests are gone. All right?”
“Oh, that’s right! You’re entertaining! Sorrrry to interrupt your little swarrrray with something so insignificant, Caroline. So you just call me back when it’s convenient, okay?”
Now I was angry. “You know what, Trip? You’re a pain in the ass. Big time. I have to think about this. I’m not giving you some blanket approval to throw Mother out of her house so Frances Mae can move in with your three girls. I want to talk to you at length and get the whole story. Then I’d like a little time to think it through. That’s not unreasonable, is it?”
“In the first place, I don’t need your approval. As executor of her estate, I have her power of attorney and down here in God’s country, you only need two signatures to have someone committed to a mental institution. The way Mother has been behaving, securing those signatures wouldn’t be a problem at all.”
No doubt, Mother rued the day she gave him that trust.
“Okay.” I realized I was stuck on the phone with him until he had said what he called to say in the first place. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“Our mother has broken up with Raoul and is currently sleeping with Jenkins.”
“What?” He must have been kidding me. Raoul was a thirty-five-year-old widow’s landscaper (read: “stud service”) who worked part time—and obviously overtime at the plantation. Jenkins was the African American caretaker of Tall Pines; Mother and Millie depended on him for everything. He lived in a cottage on Mother’s property and was practically a recluse. Never mind he was a thousand years old. “Tell me you’re lying.”
“I only wish. Millie and I saw her coming out of his house very early in the morning. I had gone over to repair some asphalt on our landing and Millie was coming to work. We both saw her, and it wasn’t the first time either.”
“There must be another explanation, Trip. Did you ask Mother?”
“Oh, yeah, sure. I just went up to her and said, So, Mother, how long have you and Jenkins been burning up the sheets?”
“You have to be a wisenheimer.”
“Seriously, Caroline. What would you say? You know how she is! She’d just lie her way out of it!”
“You’re right.” I looked out the window of Richard’s study. If Mother had decided to take it up with Jenkins, she would. The unrelenting sleet was tapping on our soundproof glass. Soundproof glass is a complete waste of money. It was a miserable February night. Perfect weather for a family blowup. Thank God Trip was my only sibling. One like him was plenty.
I had to get back to my party. There were at least ten people over seventy years old and I wanted to be sure to warn them about the icy sidewal
ks. “Trip, gimme about two hours and I’ll call you back. I just want to say good-bye to these folks, okay?”
“I’ll be asleep.”
That was a well-worn family euphemism for “I’ll be too drunk to talk.” If I had a spouse and kids like his, I’d be drunk day and night.
“I’ll try to hurry.”
“Whatever,” he said and hung up in my ear.
And they wondered why I left home. I was half-sitting on the arm of Richard’s tufted leather couch, which stood flush in front of his desk facing the window. I stared at the phone. My brother infuriated me. Why couldn’t he just stay out of Mother’s business?
Mother sleeping with Jenkins? No way. I could just see Trip and Frances Mae, plotting Mother’s eviction like two chess masters from the Kremlin. I was doomed and destined to be the peace-maker. I knew it.
Richard and I were hosting a cocktail party for the Board of Trustees at Bellevue, where Richard was the head of psychiatrics. It was the only reason he tolerated the invasion—it was the annual customary duty. He took one look at me coming into the living room and knew I was upset.
He crossed the room and whispered to me, “What’s wrong?”
“Oh, nothing,” I said, “just my brother calling to give me nightmares.”
“Ah,” he said, “do you want to go call him back?”
“No, but thanks,” I said, “I’ll call him later.”
“I’ll go wind this damn thing up, okay?”
“Thanks.”
“Sweetheart? I have to go to the office to pick up some papers for my morning meetings tomorrow. Okay?”
“Sure,” I said.
I watched him walk away. Salt-and-pepper hair, wire-rim glasses, tweed jacket, flannel trousers. The archetypal shrink.
Later, when everyone was gone, the apartment was so quiet it made my ears pound. It was nearly midnight. I called Richard’s office. No answer. Probably sleeping on the couch, as he did when he was tired. Well, that makes us even, I thought. We all get tired.
Turning out lights, I looked around at what Richard and I had built in the last thirteen years. We had six rooms of travel memorabilia from our wanderings. Our bookshelves were crammed with learned opinions on every area of psychology and psychiatrics in and out of print. Those were Richard’s. They were his library and his weapons. My books were on textiles from around the world, Japanese gardens, obscure religions such as the cargo cultures of West Africa. Sometimes it seemed that he focused on the mind of man whereas I studied the spirit and what man held sacred. Our bookshelves were as good a starting place as any to see the differences between us.
I peeked in our son’s room and saw his beautiful head down in his pillow, book on his stomach, glasses still on his nose. Eric was still the true love of my life. And, more interestingly, over the past five years, he had become an A student. I had found a school for him in Manhattan that specialized in gifted children with learning disabilities. He had learned to write beautifully and was doing so well, taking some sixth-grade courses in reading and history but tenth-grade math and science. Even the old curmudgeon himself had to agree that Eric was doing fine. I guess since Richard had achieved his goals through plain hard work in a standard environment it was still hard for him to accept that Eric needed something else.
I reached over and removed Eric’s glasses, placing them quietly on the end table. I lifted the book from his hands. The Heroes of Ancient Greek Mythology. Eric loved the stories of Ancient Rome, Greece, and any kind of culture. It made me happy to see that he had his own pursuits, giving me confidence that he’d find his way through the world despite his challenges. We all do, somehow. And, if an adoring mother could possibly make a difference . . . I smoothed his hair, pulled the covers up around him, and kissed his forehead. He sighed in his sleep and said, “Love you, Mom.”
“Love you too, baby,” I whispered and turned off his bedside lamp.
It was only late at night that I indulged myself with a healthy push of my Me Button. Tonight, I was in the mood to push. I filled my bathtub with hot water, Dead Sea salts, and some oil I had bought from an aromatherapist on Madison Avenue; it promised to soothe and relax my inner spirit and the aching muscles simultaneously. They both needed it.
Trip was on my mind; his story about Mother worried me. Richard was on my mind too. He always made me feel insignificant, unimportant. Then, there was Eric and the way Richard seemed unable to resist comparing him to Harry. Was there any kindness in his criticisms? Or compassion?
I lowered myself into the oily water and crunched some undissolved salt lumps with my foot. Slowly, I ran the big natural sponge across my chest and then up and down my legs. As I thought more about Richard and the way he dismissed Eric, I lost my desire to soak. I rinsed with the hand shower and wrapped myself in a huge towel, draining the tub.
I began my nightly ritual. It seemed unfair that the older I got the more I had to do before sleeping. Unfair because the older I got, the more tired I was at night. But dutifully, I flossed, rinsed, brushed for two full minutes, gargled, used the fruit acid, the eye cream, moisturized my face, neck, chest, elbows, cuticles, and finally my legs. I pulled a white cotton Italian nightshirt over my head and brushed my blond hair up into a ponytail. My hair needed a toner. Big time. It was nearly one in the morning. Richard still wasn’t home.
I pulled down the bedspread, folded it, and placed it on the blanket rack. I removed the bolster and tossed the four pillows on our queen-size bed—two European squares and two American standards. The crisp linens felt wonderful and I slid between them feeling more tired than I had in ages. Maybe I would read for ten minutes to help me sleep. Maybe I’d go get a glass of wine. Maybe I’d do both. I did neither, but turned off the light and tried to sleep. I watched the blinking and changing minutes of my digital alarm.
It was almost two when I heard the door open. Red alert—she’s mad now! Richard was back. Soon he climbed into bed. I didn’t flinch a muscle. I smelled something—the unmistakable stench of Opium. He was snoring in less than three minutes. There was only one woman I knew who wore Opium. Lois. I was too tired to kill him. I’d commit murder first thing in the morning.
MISS LAVINIA’S JOURNAL
I talked to Sweetie and Nancy about Trip and I told them about the money thing and how he wants me to move to the Century City Resort on Hilton Head.They were horrified and now I realize what a fool I have been. I have let myself be taken advantage of for the last time. He owes me a small fortune and I’ll move if and when I decide to. Not when he decides! That fortune is Caroline’s inheritance as well. I know I should call her tonight and discuss this. I can’t do it. I miss Nevil tonight, something fierce.
Ten
Wake Up and Smell the Opium
2000
THERE was no good reason I could conceive why Richard should have been out until two in the morning. His absence served as a stinging reminder of his trip to London with Lois during Eric’s birth. Still playing games. The lingering scent of Opium in my bedroom made me so mad that all night, I dreamed of murder.
I dreamed of ways to snuff out the breath of my miserable brother, his phylum Sub-humanis wife, and my husband. And, Lois. Oh, the fun I had in my somnambulistic state! The power I felt! I was Blackbeard—Ms. Blackbeard, if you please—slashing away at their greedy wishes, making them pay for their self-serving ways.
In one dream, I dipped my brother in a huge vat of boiling Velveeta and then turned his hunting dogs on him—his Labs love cheese and would kill for it. In this case, they licked him to death. In another, I tied Richard to his desk chair and tossed his first-edition Jung and Freud books into a fire. He hyperventilated into oblivion. Oh, yes! I was in complete control! Ah!—and Frances Mae, my despicable sister-in-law? I held her hair bleach high out of her reach and watched her roots grow at warp speed. Handing her a mirror, I reveled euphoric as she screamed over and over. For an added measure of macabre torment, I told her that Mother had left all her worldly goods to me and th
at she would get nothing. Moo-hoo-ha-ha! She became a puddle at my feet like the Wicked Witch of the West, calling out in anguish, drowning in her sodium-free tears, disappearing forever.
And finally Lois! I summoned her face and slapped it over and over, her head swinging back and forth like a rag doll. The Dominatrix of the Land of Morpheus, wearing a perfect black crepe dinner dress and pearls. After all, these were my dreams, not theirs.
I woke up surprised, half laughing at my creative and brave self, only to face the reality of Richard and Lois first, and remembering I’d have to deal with Trip and Frances Mae all too soon. Not to mention Mother.
I decided to handle Richard with the silent treatment. Making breakfast for Eric in my robe, I fried two eggs for him and microwaved two pieces of bacon. Eric was drinking his orange juice and packing his backpack at the same time.
“Want more juice, sweetheart?” I asked.
Enter Richard.
“Good morning, everyone! Do we have any bagels?”
He delivered a salutatory peck on my cheek. I said nothing. The spousal chill.
“Something wrong, Caroline?”
“Eric? Would you tell your father that the bagels are in the freezer next to the bottle of Opium?”
“Pop? Mom says—”
“I heard her.” Richard sighed one of those sighs that says, Why me? Why do I have to deal with this? I married her, didn’t I? Yes, I suppose . . .
Eric shrugged his shoulders and took the plate of eggs and bacon to the table to inhale. I stood with the spatula in my hand and rubbed the corner of my eye with the other hand, suggesting complete indifference. I threw in a small yawn to make sure my annoyance was absorbed into his thick sponge of a brain.
“You know, Caroline,” Richard said, reaching in the bag of frozen bagels and popping one off, “I think you’re a bit paranoid. Would you like to talk about it?”
Paranoid?
“Don’t patronize me, Richard. Are you going to tell me that you didn’t go to Lois’s house last night?”