comes back, takes her seat near Simon, and fills her once full glass to the brim again. She's already finished one large glass in the time it took Simon to barely touch his.
"Have you checked in on your father?"
"I was just in there before you got here."
"He seem okay?"
"Seems like a guy on a lot of pain medication."
Simon notices that her eyes, though not nearly as red and puffy anymore, are the eyes of someone who hasn't gotten a full night's sleep in a very long time. Despite this, she still looks so young for a woman in her early-forties, and she's still so beautiful even with the weight of anticipation she's so obviously carrying. She must be quite breathtaking under normal circumstances.
"Your father and I used to get this lasagna from the Italian market every Tuesday before he got sick," she says, looking at Simon. "Sitting here with you… You look so much like him. You even sound like him—the way you annunciate your words. And with this music—" She stops what she's saying and closes her eyes as the song fades into the next track. "When Your Lover Has Gone" starts to play, and Simon is afraid she's going to start crying once the melancholy of Webster's sax kicks in.
"Susannah?" he says, trying to break the silence.
"It's just so nice," she says, and, with eyes still closed, she reaches for his hand. He takes her hand in his for lack of knowing what else to do. She smiles.
She opens her eyes, looks at his hand in hers, and he can see that shine in her eyes again. Her blue eyes are brighter than the water that shimmers from the evening sun on the lake, and when she looks up at him, he feels the caress of her eyes—a softness that startles him with its affection.
He casually pulls his hand away, starts eating his salad.
She takes another large drink of wine.
"Do you—?"
"What's it like—?" she starts, interrupting him. "Sorry. You go."
"No, please, you go."
"What's it like being back home?"
"Strange. In some ways, it's almost like I never left, and I'm still just a kid with the same hopes and fears I always had."
"Is it difficult going back to Maggie's?" she asks, a little tentatively. He gets the feeling that she's asking about the house as a way of asking about the gulf between he and Sy without directly addressing his mother's death.
"You mean because of Mom?" he asks as she takes another drink of wine.
His directness makes her sputter a bit on her drink. "Yes, I guess that is what I mean," she says, and he can tell that the alcohol hasn't quite shot her with its bravado yet.
"It is hard, but it's not the thing you'd think would bother me when I'm there. It's not her death. It's more the weight she still has on my memory of the place, and it's not a particularly easy weight to carry. You understand?"
"I think I do."
"I'm sure Dad's told you all about her."
"A little," she says, picking at her lasagna.
"That seems like the kind of thing that would come up from time to time," he says, watching her move her fork around her food in the laborious way of someone who's trying to talk themselves into an appetite. He doesn't think she's taken a single bite of anything since they sat down.
"I don't think it's something he was ever too keen to talk about. First marriages are usually not a popular topic for second marriages, I don't think."
"No, I guess they wouldn't be," he says. "But what about you? Were you married before Dad?"
"No," she says, almost defensively. "I mean, I had my fair share of long relationships. No. that's not right.'My fair share—' What am I saying? I had a couple live-in boyfriends before Sy, but nothing too serious."
"People find it suspicious when you live with someone for a long time without getting married, don't they?"
"It's true. I don't know if it's an American construct or what, but it's definitely a thing. I know, for me, I had no intentions of marrying the men I lived with before. I always had the feeling that they were transitional lovers, and..." she stops herself, shakes her head, blushes a bit. "Listen to me, 'lovers.' I'm getting silly. Too much wine, I suppose."
"It's alright. I didn't think anything of it."
"What about you? You never got married?"
"No," he says, shaking his head. "I guess I just don't see the point. I'm like you were, I guess. I've never seen any of my relationships as permanent arrangements."
"Well, I was like that until I met your dad."
"Right, but you know what I'm saying. It just doesn't feel right to place a permanence on something as uncertain as personality. I don't know why anyone would assume that I will be the same person I am now ten years from now, and vice versa. It feels like someone's asking you to take a dangerous leap of faith with them."
"And does Rachael feel the same way?"
"How do you know about Rachael?"
"Your dad's mentioned her."
"Yeah, he said something about her yesterday, but I'm still not sure how he really knows about Rachael."
"I'm sure Maggie told him—not in a gossipy way, I'm sure."
"But I thought he and Maggie just recently reconnected," he says with a confused look on his face. "I guess she never said that explicitly, though I feel like it was implied."
"I'm sorry I said anything. I didn't know that you—"
"No, I know you didn't," he says. "Don't worry about it."
She takes the last gulp of her second glass of wine, and reaches for the bottle.
"So, how long has Dad and Maggie been back in contact?"
"Simon, I don't want to —"
"It's not something I'm upset about," he says, trying to keep his voice even. He wasn't telling the truth. He was upset, but he wasn't exactly sure why. "I just want to know."
"I don't know exactly. Since early last fall, I think. Just after the diagnosis."
"Really?"
"Yes, really."
"Hmmm," he says, sitting back in his chair.
"Simon, please don't make a big deal out of this. I already feel like my relationship with your sister is guarded at best."
"How come?"
"Why do you think? She still blames me."
"I don't think that's true."
"What about you? Do you blame me?" she asks, taking a drink from her newly filled glass.
"I never blamed you. It was always him I blamed."
"And now?"
"I don't think I blame anybody anymore. The costs of attaching blame are too high."
"I wish you could've realized that earlier."
"A relationship is a two-way street, you know. I wasn't the only one capable of reaching out."
"I think it would surprise you how much your dad feared being rejected by you. I think kids think of their parents as holding a special kind of psychological power over their lives, and they rarely see how much power they hold over their parents."
"How would you know? You don't have any kids," he says, though with more bite than he intended.
"That wasn't a very nice thing to say," she says, looking directly at him. The light in her eyes is gone now, replaced with a flash of hurt.
"I'm sorry," he says. "I don't know why I said that."
"It's alright. I shouldn't interfere."
"No, you're not interfering. I'm just… I don't know what I was thinking. I don't have any kids, either."
"You want any?"
"It's never been a priority of mine."
"And Rachael?"
"I think she might, but that's someone else's concern now."
"So, it's over between you?"
"I think it is, yes."
"Does she know that?"
"She knows."
"For how long?"
"Just before I left to come here we finally acknowledged what we had both known for awhile."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"Don't be."
"So, what's keeping you there?"
"My job, for one."
"You're not going to t
ake the job here?"
"You knew about that, too, huh?"
"Of course I did," she says. "It's just about all he's talked about for the past six months."
"Are you trying to guilt me into—?"
"Oh, no. Not at all," she says, putting both her hands out in a motion of surrender. "I'm just stating facts."
"I haven't decided," he says, scooping up the last bite of his lasagna. "Besides, it's a temporary position. The job I have now is permanent, and I'm assuming it also pays better."
"That's not true. The contract is explicit that your salary be consistent with your current salary."
"How do you know this?"
"I took an interest."
"Still temporary, though."
She leans in a little like she's telling him a secret. "Your dad knows that they'll have to renew your contract after this year."
"What makes you say that?"
"I won't say anymore."
"Is this about the new manuscript?"
"I'm not saying another word."
"It's not like I'm not considering it. It's just that it's a lot to think about."
"And there's Laura," she says, smiling, clearly over her head in wine now.
"What about her?"
"Oh, nothing."
"No, come on. What do you mean?"
"Your dad and I are very fond of Laura, and I think he hoped she'd have someone to look after her, if you know what I'm saying."
"You're not being particularly subtle about it."
"And I think he knows her well enough to know that she might be good at looking after you, too."
"He might know her just fine, but he may not know me as well as he thinks."
"Wouldn't hurt to find out, would it?" she asks, smiling at him, the brim of her wine glass resting on her bottom lip.
"You've had a lot to drink."
"You have no idea," she says and takes another drink. "Not near enough."
"Must be hard."
"Incomprehensibly," she says, annunciating each syllable with care and with her eyes closed.
And then, through the intrusion of silence in the room, he sees a calm wash