The same day, she got a call.
“Hello, Rebecca. I had been expecting to hear from you for some time and am only surprised that it took you a year to come after me. Listen, there was much to our relationship that I am certain Felix never informed you, and before you begin to tell me what a wicked woman I am for leaving him, you should know that.”
“I . . . uh, Celeste, sorry, that’s not why I wanted to talk—”
“Then you wish to inform me that you and Felix are lovers? Are you trying to hurt me? I may not have gone about the end of my marriage in the best manner, but nevertheless, it was for the best. I am happy and can’t be wounded by that information. Go and enjoy each other, and I hope you can live with what you have done to Michael.”
Becky considered that Celeste was the most difficult phone conversationalist in the world.
“No, uh . . . no, not that either, Celeste. Mike and I are still married and very happy. No, this isn’t about Felix at all.”
“No?”
“No. I—well, this is even more awkward than I thought it would be. Ahem. I just wanted your opinion on something. You remember Fiona? She has a passion for fashion design and I’d love for her to be able to pursue it and just wondered if you had any advice—”
Becky was cut off by laughter.
“Advice? You’re calling for fashion-world advice for Fiona? And I attacked you and accused you—quehonte, mon lapin, you see what a monster I am. I am a pile of rubbish to be swept into the yard and buried under sand. Rebecca, my darling, of course! Advice and more and the world for dear Fiona! She is practically my niece. She is nearly my own flesh and blood. If you and Michael are killed unexpectedly I demand full custody of that child. How divine!”
They exchanged relieved compliments before hanging up. Becky stood by the receiver, staring at it for some time. Celeste had thought Becky had left Mike for Felix. Becky felt a little ill, as if she’d eaten a fast-food combo meal, and she went to find Mike and kiss him and tell him she loved him and always, always would. It seemed the best thing to do. It usually was.
Celeste called Fiona and soon they were regular e-mail correspondents, and Fiona began to stand up straight for the first time since she’d started puberty. Becky said a silent prayer of thanks for Celeste, considering that mothers are so important everyone needs more than one.
“Ouch,” Becky said aloud as a long-forgotten worry bit her—Felix’s mother. “Estranged” and “mother” were two words that should never go together. She called him at once.
“Polly is ecstatic about going to the awards and it’s very sweet that you asked her, but isn’t there someone else you might want to take?”
“We already had this conversation, and I don’t know how nicely I can tell you that your entire wardrobe deserves to be burned at the stake.”
“Not me. Family.”
Silence.
“Is this the bit where you confess your meddling?” he asked.
“Don’t think about her,” she said. “Or you. Think about Hyrum distancing himself from me for years, and one day accomplishing something amazing, and how I would feel all those years later if he called and asked me to come. You know how I would feel, right?”
More silence.
“I’ll think about it,” he said at last.
The next day, he phoned to say he’d booked a flight for his mother.
“I won’t crush poor Polly’s spirit, however,” he said. “She will still be my date on the red carpet, and my mother will join me inside.”
“Bless your heart, Felix Paul Callahan! Just bless your fuzzy little heart!”
“Enough.”
“Okay. Sorry. No more blessing. No more fuzzy hearts.” She couldn’t silence a little squeal however, and he groaned and ended the call.
The phone rang a few seconds later, and Becky assumed it was Felix calling back to throw out some snarky comment he’d thought of too late, but instead Celeste’s warm, syrupy voice asked for Fiona.
“She’s not here now, Celeste. I’ll tell her you called.”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Thank you for what you’re doing for her.” Becky cleared her throat. She didn’t know how to talk to Celeste. As Felix’s best friend, she thought she should be angry, resentful, protective. But just then, she felt shy. “How are you and, uh, Alfredo? Doing?”
Celeste sighed. “Alfredo is gone. He is a passionate man, so passionate, and he burns and burns and consumes and then believes he must rage on elsewhere. I don’t hate him. It’s just as well—I grew weary of the burning. But I’m not left alone.”
And that’s when Becky heard it—the tiny hiccup cry of a newborn.
“Celeste, do you . . .”
“Yes! Yes, yes, Rebecca, I know what you are to say because we’re both mothers and mothers have powers of intuition. Yes, I have a baby here in my arms, my own baby. His name is Bellamy, and he is divine.”
“Oh, Celeste, I’m so happy for you. I really, really am.”
“Yes, I am too. And Rebecca, I tell you, I’m surprised by the power of that yes. Yes! Yes! I say it, I—shhh, Bellamy, shh. I’m too noisy. Ma-man is so noisy.” She made some humming noises, some cooing noises, and her voice softened. “Felix didn’t want children, Rebecca. And I wanted Felix. I thought I didn’t need the children. I thought Felix’s love was enough. But years passed by and I began to realize I didn’t know what I wanted. That’s when I met Alfredo, you see. He yearned for children, dozens of them, desperate he was, so impassioned, so warm and vibrant. I saw a different life I could have.” Her voice softened even more. “Now Alfredo is gone, but the baby . . . Oh, Rebecca.”
“I know.”
“I had no idea. I didn’t understand.”
“I know.”
“I never understood love or what it means to live, to have cells inside me splitting and forming new ones, to have blood rushing through me. I never understood anything until my baby. He is everything.”
“He is,” Becky agreed. “He so is.”
“I’m sorry for what I did to Felix. I’m sorry for how it ended. But it had to be so, you see? It had to be. So Bellamy could be. God stood beside me and pointed the way. I took the wrong path getting here, I know, mon lapin, but here I am now with this baby in my arms. Grâce à dieu.”
After the call, Becky wandered the house for an hour, looking for something useful to do, but each time she began to fold laundry or tidy the family room, she got distracted and wandered off again. There was a buzzing in her bones that made her need to keep moving, a tingling in her legs that begged motion. She was happy. Celeste had a baby. Little Bellamy. Becky ambled back to the kitchen, disappointed to find no dishes to wash. Regret stung a little in the glow of goodness—she wished it could have been Felix’s son. She wished Felix could be a father, that Celeste hadn’t broken his heart, that there could be a family where family was needed.
But the sting of regret couldn’t kill the glow. She had heard in Celeste’s voice just how smitten she was with her little guy. Somewhere in France there was boy who was as loved as any creature in this world. It was a reason to rejoice.
Not sure how Felix would feel about her contact with his ex, Becky decided not to mention it to him until the stress of the Oscars had passed. But at the pre-party in Los Angeles, he took one look at the girls and said, “Been in touch with Celeste, have you?”
“How did you know?” Becky asked.
“Come now, who would have helped Fiona have that dress made? You?”
“Oh, okay, fine.” She took a breath. “Did you know she had a baby?”
He stared hard at the ground. “I knew.”
“She and Alfredo are quits. She’s raising the baby alone, living with her mother in France for now. I was thinking, if there was a time when amends could be made—”
“Becky.” He held her hands, his eyes clear and hard. “You want to mend the whole world, but some things are best left alone. I’m not being bitter when I say I don’t w
ant to see Celeste again. We changed. There is no us to re unite. She’s happy; I’m happy. It is quite over. As it should be.”
Becky nodded. This one she would let be.
So Polly and Felix walked the red carpet. The family watched from Felix’s living room and screamed when they saw Polly, her sweet, shy smile picked up by hundreds of cameras. She was so beautiful, so beautiful, Becky’s heart teetered between bursting joy and shrinking fear to see her baby girl fourteen and nearly grown, dressed for a ball and out in the world.
“That midnight blue is the perfect color for her,” Becky said.
Fiona gazed at the screen. “It works with her skin tone, and it’s the exact color of the outer ring of her irises. With her build, she’d do better in patterned tops, but for this I wanted a single tone—more elegant. So I off set the plainness of the color by creating more interest around her neck and shoulder, with the folded fabric there and the gathering on the one side.”
“Wow. You are so much smarter than I am.”
Fiona smiled with more shyness than was her wont. “I’m trying to impress you.”
“Baby, you don’t even have to try.”
On camera, Felix introduced Polly as his adopted goddaughter and they sang a short duet of “That’s Amore” for the camera. The family applauded so loudly Becky thought Polly might hear a few blocks away. Even Hyrum hooted for his sister, as loud and urgent as the last Who yelling for Horton.
Mike went down to the theater to wait for Polly, plucking her out of the crazed chaos and bringing her back to Felix’s place. She stayed in her dress all night, sitting carefully on the sofa to watch the televised awards show, smiling so hard Becky worried her cheeks would give out.
The show was painfully long, but Becky couldn’t tear her eyes from the screen, even during commercials. She put both hands over her mouth and held her breath when at last she saw what she’d been both yearning for and dreading—Felix on camera with his mother.
Biddie Callahan-Coxhill was perhaps seventy years old, her white hair dyed brown in a clumsy job that even Becky’s eye could spot. She was wearing a purple taffeta gown, the frills doubling her girth, and no jewelry except a heart locket. Becky had been with Felix when he’d purchased that locket a couple of years before, not knowing then whom it was for. Biddie had a look about her—cunning if somewhat simple eyes, disapproving mouth—that made Becky think she might not be the most relaxing person to be around. But Felix had a hand atop hers, and she was gazing at her son. Smiling. Beaming. Actually glowing, so that Becky wondered if she could read a book by the light of her face alone.
“Good boy,” Becky whispered. “Good, good boy.”
Jamie Foxx won the Oscar, but Becky was certain Felix must have come in a very close second and declared it often. Mike chose to go back to the hotel with the boys while Becky and the girls attended an after-party. Felix took them to a relatively quiet gathering hosted by a director who had small children, guessing that it would be decent for the girls.
Felix was in great spirits, no matter that he didn’t win. “It’s over. I’m a free man. Hallelujah.”
“Is your mother here?” Becky asked, looking around.
He shook his head. “She was knackered and went back to her hotel.”
“Mm,” said Becky.
“You want to know how it went.”
She shrugged.
“You want me to tell you how I feel about it and what Biddie thought.”
She lifted one shoulder and looked away coyly.
Felix sighed. “It was not unbearable having her here. And Mum was . . . happy. So, thank you.”
That was when Becky attacked him with a ferocious momma hug.
Even her meddling couldn’t dampen his mood after being freed from the shackles of waiting-on-Oscar. He danced with Fiona and karaoked with Polly. He and Becky did a reprisal of “Islands in the Stream,” then the four of them shared the microphones and sang “We Are Family.” Felix was spry and joyous, dancing foolishly, plying them with handfuls of candy stolen from various bowls. It wasn’t until the end of the evening that Becky realized she hadn’t seen him drink anything but water.
On the cab ride back to their hotel, Fiona said, “I like Felix.”
“Me too,” Polly said.
“Yeah, but you always have. I used to think he was mean, or just cold or something. But he was fun to night. I think he’s a good guy.”
On the phone a few days later, Becky told Felix what Fiona had said. He laughed.
“You see? Children are wonderful once they grow into adults.”
“And so are you, Felix.”
“Well said, Mrs. Jack. Well said.”
ACT 3
Last Kisses
How far away the stars seem, and how far
Is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart!
William Butler Yeats
In which we waste no time, because Becky would abhor dwelling on the sad parts
Remission. Becky loathed the word. It sounded bland, clinical, passive, innocuous even—oh, sinister, ugly word! Insidious, corrupt, malicious word. Hateful. Lying. Duplicitous. Evil lurked between the letters, waiting to pounce. How had she ever rejoiced in it? When had it seemed full of hope? Temporary, it was really saying. This joy is temporary. The illness is still there, waiting for its time. And this time the attack will be much, much worse.
They discovered it at Mike’s yearly checkup. He had no symptoms. He was feeling fine. But the doctor worried about the urine sample results. They did follow-up tests. Becky left the boys in the care of Polly, who was almost fifteen and becoming less flighty and more reliable. Becky and Mike sat in the leather armchairs at the doctor’s office, holding hands, and waited for words of comfort. The doctor sat down. His cushioned chair wheezed as it settled and sounded remarkably like passed gas. So Becky was on the verge of laughing when the doctor said, “It looks like it’s back.”
The laugh fell away, replaced by a sensation like being belted in the stomach. He didn’t prepare them at all. He didn’t ask them to think of happy thoughts or make sure they were sitting comfortably. He didn’t say, “I’ve got some bad news.” Just, “It’s back.”
And then, “Let’s get a plan for how we’re going to eradicate it for good.”
Okay. Plans were good. Becky liked plans. They gave her things to do, ways to use her hands, keep busy, fight for that end result.
So they planned. And they fought. Tests and tests and treatments. Back to radiation. Go, fight, win.
Mike was a rock. Besides the cancer, his body was in great shape, and the doctors kept saying, “He has an excellent chance. He’s young, healthy, with a happy, stable home life. The cancer is serious, but his odds are better than most.”
The worst was dragging the kids through it again—because Becky was certain it would all end well. She had that deep-rooted sensation of comfort, almost as if a small voice were whispering, everything will be well. Everything’s going to come out fine. She just hated for those poor kids to have to worry about their dad again. So she didn’t let them worry. She was up, up, up all the time. Happy, calm, hopeful.
“Bec, you’re working too hard,” Mike would scold. “Why don’t you go out tonight, see your sister or Melissa, do what ever girlie stuff you do when I’m not around. Like catch a Felix Callahan flick.”
“What, those cavalcades of smut? No thank you.” She lay next to him, fitting her hand around his jaw. “I like being with you.”
“Because I’m so fascinating.”
“You have your moments, but mostly, I just like to look at you. Your momma knew how to make a fine-looking laddie.”
When Mike was asleep (she made his bedtime nine-thirty—he needed his strength) and all the kids settled, she would talk to Felix. Never for long. She needed her rest too. Just a few words, just to touch voices with someone who was moving out in that bright, untainted world.
“It’s not until I’m alone that I realize how tired I am.”
“I can come out. Tomorrow.”
“No. I’m so busy I’d feel guilty that I wasn’t paying enough attention to you.”
“I don’t need attention.”
“Ha! That’s a good one, Felix. You always were so witty.”
“I’ll disappear into a corner. You won’t even know I’m there.”
“Then I’d be sad. No, stay where you are, off in fantasyland making moving pictures and dating lively young impossibilities. It makes me happy that life is going on normally somewhere.”
“If you need something impossible and you don’t call me for help, I will get very angry.”
“And I won’t like you when you’re angry.”
“No, you’ll still like me. You can’t help it. But it’s a messy scene—sometimes I throw things, like milk. And pens.”
“I’ll call.”
“Good.”
Again at the doctor’s office—wham.
“The radiation is having less effect than we’d hoped.”
What? That wasn’t supposed to happen. It was going to be a repeat of their last treatment adventure—hard times, icky procedures, ultimate victory. This cancer was not playing by the rules. It was enough to infuriate Becky—but she was calm. She strapped on more armor, determined to pull them all through.
She read. Books, medical journals, scores of Web sites. She counseled with the doctors about every procedure, every symptom, every test. But she was nice about it. She brought them cookies.
Postsurgery times were the closest Becky got to cracking.
“In order to feel the least bit normal,” she told her friend Melissa, “I need Mike home in his own bed.”
Melissa put both arms around Becky’s shoulders. “You’re Wonder Woman. You can do this.”
Becky nodded. “I can.”
“But you don’t have to go it alone.”
Becky hesitated.
“You don’t,” Melissa said like a threat.