“Thinking about everything made me remember…caring things about Isabel,” I said. “We didn’t get along that summer, but I know deep down we cared about each other. I know I loved her.”
“Of course you did,” Ethan said. “Ned thought I was a jerk and treated me accordingly back then, but I still know he loved me. And,” he added, “I also know he loved Isabel. That’s why it doesn’t make sense that he’d kill her.”
I watched a sailboat make its graceful way toward the bridge. A child wearing a life preserver was on board with her two parents, and it looked like her father was trying to teach her to dance.
“I’ll tell you what I told the police,” I said, my thoughts returning to Ethan’s comment about Ned. “I told them that you can never really know another person.You don’t know what was really going on inside of Ned, Ethan. No one could.” Glen had provided my unhappy introduction to that theory. “I thought I knew my ex-husband as well as I knew myself,” I said. “I thought he was so in love with me. I thought he was honest and honorable. But while I was thinking all those things, he was having an affair.”
“Oh.” Ethan rubbed the back of my hand with his thumb. “I know what that’s like,” he said. “So did Karen. My ex-wife.”
“Really?” I wondered how similar our experiences had been. “Did it go on a long time?”
“About a year.”
“Glen’s, too,” I said. “At least I think it was only a year, but like I said, I didn’t really know him. How did you find out?”
“She told me. She was in a play with the local community theater and she came home one night and told me she was in love with the director of the play and wanted a divorce.”
“Wow,” I said. I tried to imagine the scene. Which room of this house had they been in when she told him? Had he slept in the guest room that night? Or had she? Glen had slept on the sofa in the family room; our guest-room bed had been covered with boxes of my books. “Were you devastated?” I asked.
“Completely,” he said. “I’d never pictured myself getting a divorce. It wasn’t a word in my vocabulary. My parents were married nearly sixty years, and they were excellent role models on how to run a marriage. They had good communication and a lot of love. I thought my marriage was the same way, but I was wrong.”
“That’s what I mean,” I said. “You have this illusion of what someone is like.You assume that if the marriage is great for you, it’s great for them, and unless they speak up, you don’t have a clue.”
“Your husband didn’t speak up?”
I shook my head. “No, and guess how I found out?”
“How?”
“The woman called me. She said she knew Glen was struggling with how to tell me, so she decided to tell me herself.”
Ethan laughed. “Well, you know who wore the pants in that relationship,” he said.
“I thought it was a cruel hoax,” I said. “Maybe one of Glen’s co-workers was angry with him and trying to hurt him. But when Glen came home that evening and I told him about the call, he started to cry…and that was the beginning of the end.” I let out my breath in a long stream. “It was so incredibly painful to imagine him with someone else.”
“Oh, yeah,” Ethan said, and I knew he understood. “Did he end up marrying her?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “They broke up right after he and I separated.” I looked down at our hands where they rested together on his thigh. His skin was a ruddy color, his beautiful fingers smooth on top, rough on the bottom where they pressed against my skin. There were tiny, nearly microscopic, lines everywhere on the back of my own olive-toned hand. My hands were turning into my mother’s. “It was partly my fault,” I said. “The end of our marriage. I was a workaholic.”
“Are you still?”
I had to laugh. “Well, I was, until this whole thing with Ned’s letter came up. I haven’t written a word since then. At least not a word worth publishing.”
“I try not to think in terms of fault,” Ethan said. “I know it sounds trite, but Karen and I just drifted apart. She got very involved in her theater work and it was new and exciting for her. She got more and more into it until she said she wanted to move to New York to have a better chance at acting.”
“Really! Is that where she is?”
“Uh-huh. She married her lover, but she’s not acting, ironically. She’s still teaching, just as she was here. I think she’s happy, though.”
“You don’t sound angry,” I marveled.
“I’m not. I’ve forgiven her. It wasn’t easy for her, either.”
Men handled the end of relationships better than women did, I thought. “I think I’ve forgiven Glen,” I said, not sure it was the truth. “But I still get angry with him for not letting me know he was unhappy. For being so passive. It’s hard to fix something if you don’t know it’s broken.” I thought of Shannon and the toll the divorce had taken on her. “Does Abby know about her mother?” I asked.
“That she left me for another guy?” he asked, and I nodded. “Yes. It was no secret. She was furious with her for a while, but they’ve worked it out.”
“Shannon doesn’t know,” I said. “I don’t want her to think badly of her father.”
“That’s wise of you,” he said.
I rested my head against the wicker back of the love seat, looking at the paneled ceiling of the porch. “My own relationship with her is going south fast, though,” I said.
“How come?”
“She says I’ve suffocated her and I probably have,” I said. “Sometimes I feel as though she hates me. When I came to your house the first time and Abby was leaving, she told you she loved you, and I realized I couldn’t remember the last time Shannon
said those words to me.”
“You tell her, I guess?” Ethan asked.
“Of course. And either she doesn’t respond, or she says something like ‘uh-huh.’”
Ethan chuckled. Then he asked, “How often do you tell your mother you love her?”
I was taken aback. Never, I thought with a jolt. The last time had probably been when I was a child. Probably before Isabel’s death. “I show her I love her in a lot of ways,” I said.
“It’s not the same, though,” he said. “You want to hear those words from Shannon, but how can you expect her to say them to you when you don’t even say them to your own mother?”
I was quiet, thinking. How did you express those feelings after a lifetime of holding them in? I thought of calling my mother right that moment and telling her I loved her. I couldn’t do it, and I knew the reason why: I was afraid she wouldn’t be able to say the same words back to me.
The topic was a sad, difficult one, and still I liked sitting there with Ethan, talking with him about everything on our minds. It was perfect, like pillow talk without the sex. What could be better? Yet there was a very small part of me that was wondering how it would feel if our hands were resting on my thigh instead of on his. I liked this new and improved Ethan very much.
“I’m sorry I was so cold to you when we were twelve,” I said.
He laughed. “Don’t be,” he said. “I was in my own little world. I was an oddball, and a frustrated one, because I had a huge crush on you that summer.”
“You’re kidding?”
“I thought you were so cool, a tomboy but with a certain twelve-year-old feminine charm.”
I laughed as well.
“But I didn’t know how to talk to you anymore,” he said. “You’d matured beyond my reach. I wanted to go crabbing and fishing with you, like we used to. I wanted to ask if I could go out in your boat with you, but I knew you didn’t want me hanging around you anymore.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “If I’d known you’d turn out this good, I would have let you tag along, believe me.” The words poured out easily, and I was not sorry I’d said them.
“Thank you,” he said. “That’s really nice to hear.”
A moment passed and again I found myself imagining h
is hand on my thigh, my belly tightening a bit at the thought.
“You had so much spirit,” Ethan said. “You were such an adventurer.”
“That girl’s gone,” I said with some sadness. “She died when Isabel did.”
“I bet she’s still in there somewhere,” he said.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Life is so good, Julie,” he said. “And it’s so short. We’ve got to take advantage of every minute we’re given.”
“Are you on antidepressants or something?”
He laughed again. “I’m just lucky,” he said. “I think I got an overabundance of serotonin when I was born. Maybe I got Ned’s share.” He sobered at that thought, growing quiet, and I let him have his silence. Then he spoke again. “I think I was influenced by my parents,” he said. “They were very positive, can-do sort of people. I always remember something my father said in one of his speeches after he lost his bid for governor. We were all there with him. It was in Trenton, and I was standing behind him with my mother and Ned, and I was about fifteen and trying not to cry because I didn’t want to look like a jerk, but I felt really sorry for my father. He’d worked so hard on his campaign and, to me, it seemed as though nothing mattered anymore. Dad did the usual sort of speech about thanking his staff and the people who’d voted for him. A reporter shouted out the question, ‘What will you do now?’ and my father waited a minute and then answered that he didn’t believe the old adage that when a door closes, a window opens. He said he believed that when a door closed, the entire world opened up to you, and that he would find other ways of serving the people. And that’s what he did. He reopened his law practice and took pro bono work. We had money, so that was never the issue. He worked quietly and tirelessly until he retired. Anyhow, his words that day stuck with me. He didn’t stay mired in his sadness.”
“He was a wise man,” I said. I was thinking, A man like that would be able to tolerate learning about his son’s guilt. He would be able to bounce back from that revelation.
Ethan must have been thinking along similar lines.
“You know what, Julie?” he asked.
“What?”
“We’re going to have to tell our parents about Ned’s letter before the cops do.”
“I know,” I said, resigned.
Ethan let go of my hand and put his arm around me. “And maybe an ‘I love you’ when you share that news with your mother might soften the blow,” he said.
CHAPTER 22
Maria
At McDonald’s this morning, I was chatting with a woman I knew from church when my young co-worker, Cordelia, came up behind me.
“Maria.” She sang my name in my ear, her Colombian accent so pretty, and there was something teasing in the sound. “You have a visitor,” she said.
“Where?” I asked, turning, and she nodded in the direction of the restaurant entrance. I think I knew who it was even before I saw him. Ross. He stood near the door, leaning on his cane, his face unsmiling. He nodded in a gentlemanly fashion when he saw me.
I tried to keep my face impassive in front of Cordelia.
“Thank you, dear,” I said to her.
“Is he your boyfriend?” she asked, grinning.
“No way, no how,” I said as I moved past her in Ross’s direction.
“Hello, Ross,” I said to him, my voice as neutral as I could make it. I really wanted to yell at him. I wanted to say Why are you bugging me, you old goat?
“I’d like to chat a bit,” he said. “I’ll get some lunch and then could you sit with me, please?” “I don’t think we have a thing in the world to chat about,” I said. I picked up a dirty tray from a nearby table, emptied the wrappers into the trash bin and set the tray on top of it. I was glad to have something to do so that I didn’t have to look at his face as I spoke.
“Please,” he said. “I drove all the way from Lakewood.”
Well, whose fault is that? I thought. But there was something so pathetic about him that I gave in. “All right,” I said. “You get off your feet and I’ll get you something to eat. What would you like?”
“I’ll get it myself,”he said, still the prideful man I’d once known.
“Fine,” I said. “You get what you want and I’ll sit with you for a while. I don’t have long, though,” I added. “I’m working, you know.”
He moved toward the line, which was not long, since we were in between the breakfast and lunch crowds.
I wished that more of the tables were dirty or that there were some toddlers to watch in the little play area, but there was not much to absorb my attention as I waited for Ross to get his food. I chatted with my acquaintance from Holy Trinity again until I saw Ross leave the counter with his tray in his hands, the cane over his arm. I thought of helping him, but in spite of my distaste for the man, I didn’t want to bruise his ego any more than it had already been bruised by age and circumstance.
When he reached a table in the corner, I walked over and sat down with him. I was keenly aware of my young fellow employees giggling about us behind the counter, probably imagining the budding of a romance between their grandmotherly co-worker and this old geezer.
“So,” I said, “did Ethan ever say anything to you about how that lunch went with Julie?”
“Just that it was nice to see her,” Ross said. He had not unwrapped his burger and seemed to have no intention of doing so, but he lifted his cup of coffee to his lips and took a sip.
“Aren’t you going to eat?” I asked.
He didn’t seem to hear me. “Do you look back at any of your life with regret, Maria?” he asked.
I had to laugh. “Of course I do,” I said, then lowered my voice. “My relationship with you is one of my major regrets.”
He looked down quickly, fingering the napkin on his tray as though it suddenly needed his attention, and I thought I’d hurt him with my words. I felt a twinge of guilt for that. He was not an evil man. Maybe not a bad man at all, although I’d certainly voted against him when he ran for governor; it doesn’t pay to know too much about your politicians. I knew he’d gone on to do some very good things with his life. I knew he’d represented poor people in court. I knew he had strong values and had put his money where his mouth was on more than one occasion. As I sat there studying his too-thin face and the web of wrinkles around his pewter-gray eyes, I wondered if my regret had more to do with my own weakness than with anything he had done. I was not sure. When it came to Ross, I always ended up a little confused about my feelings.
“I don’t blame you for feeling regret, Maria,” he said, raising his eyes to me. “And I just want to offer you my deepest, deepest apology for ever having hurt you in any way. There are so many things I did wrong…” He looked out the window next to our table, where a couple of young boys dodged the cars in the parking lot on their skateboards. “To start with, I was a covert bigot, adopting my parents’ prejudices as my own. I let them rule me. Own me. I should have stayed with you, out in the open. I was a fool for that.”
Whew. Did he plan to go through his crimes against me one by one, waiting for my forgiveness after each apology? That I couldn’t bear. The truth was, his words were not enough. Nothing would be enough. And I did not regret his breaking up with me when I was so young and stupid; I only regretted that I’d allowed the relationship to continue in its clandestine form. I could see, though, that the only way to get rid of him now was to accept his apology. If that eased his emotional pain, I would just have to let that happen.
“All right,” I said. “Thank you for telling me that.”
He looked surprised, then smiled. “You are beautiful,” he said. “I mean…I’m not trying to be…to flirt.”
That’s good, I thought. An old man flirting was not a pretty sight.
“I mean,” he said, “you’re not only physically beautiful, but a beautiful person as well.You always were. And I…didn’t handle your kind nature very well, did I, and—”
“Ross, no more, p
lease.” I felt the Egg McMuffin I’d had for breakfast begin to rise in my throat. I couldn’t do this. “We’re done with this conversation. I forgive you for any and all transgressions, imagined or real. Now please, just get on with your life. And I need to return to work.”
I stood up, feeling his eyes on me as I walked through the restaurant toward the rest rooms. I needed to escape, not only from him but from the inevitable questioning I would be facing from my co-workers. I splashed water on my face, swallowing hard over and over again to get that McMuffin back where it belonged, and when I emerged from the rest room, I saw that Ross had gone, leaving his tray with its untouched burger and nearly full coffee cup for me to clean up.
1939
I was never able to tell my parents the truth about my breakup with Ross. How could I tell them that Ross’s parents—our next-door neighbors—had forbidden his son to date me because I was the daughter of an Italian immigrant? How that would pain my mother! So I told them that he and I had decided we wanted to date others for a while to be sure we were right for each other. I knew my parents thought that was strange; we had seemed an ideal couple to them. On a couple of occasions, they caught me crying and questioned me, wanting to make sure the breakup was my idea and not just Ross’s. I assured them I had been in agreement with him.
I returned Ross’s ring to him, and when the other kids in our gang expressed surprise, we said that we’d simply realized we weren’t ready for a steady relationship. My girlfriends did not quite believe that excuse, and although I would usually confide just about anything to them, I could not tell them the truth. It made Ross look weak and shallow. Still in love with him, I wanted to protect his exalted image to our group of friends.
It was painful, though, to be with him in a crowd without touching him. I’d watch him talk to the other girls and wonder how each girl’s pedigree compared to mine. I’d watch his hands when he ran them through his hair or when he’d cup them around a cigarette as he lit it, and I’d ache with the yearning to have those hands on my body again.