A Friend of the Family (31 page)
“How do you feel?” she asked me.
“How do you feel?” I returned.
“Relieved, I suppose,” she said. “Phil told me that a malpractice case like this could lead to wrongful death if things went astray. Years more legal horrors. More bills.”
“I’d cover the bills,” I said. “He told you that?”
“You know how your brother can be,” she said. “Dramatic. I didn’t really think you’d be arrested for wrongful death.”
“Me neither,” I said. “Although that would have really been the icing.”
“It would have.” She smiled, and we were quiet for a minute. If she was getting rid of my stuff, then it was probably time for me to find a new place to live, to get out of the studio and find an apartment. There were places in Bergentown for rent all the time, in the second
stories of the commercial buildings, above the grocery stores and H&R Blocks. Or now, with the case thrown out, maybe I could even afford a little house, my own little backyard.
“You still look put-upon,” my wife said.
“I do?”
“Like you’re not happy.”
“It doesn’t seem right to be particularly happy, even with all this — even with things turning out the way they did.”
“You just caught a break,” Elaine said.
“I’m not so sure I did.” What would a lost lawsuit have meant after everything else that I’d lost? I thought about Roseanne Craig and the smile on her face when she sold us a new car.
“I decided to cancel the appointment tomorrow with the lawyer.”
“You canceled it?” I looked at her and saw she looked embarrassed.
“I’m almost fifty-five years old, Pete. I just … you know, I just want to stand still for a while. I can’t stand any more of this you leaving or I’m leaving or we’re selling the house or you’re not here anymore and I have to drive somewhere to find you to talk about the things we need to talk about. I don’t want to plan for my own retirement,” she said.
“Your own retirement?”
“I’m really exhausted, Pete.”
Two joggers put-putted up Pearl Street, a man and a woman, and he was pushing a jogging stroller. There must have been a baby asleep inside the jogging stroller. I didn’t know these people, but I remembered Alec as an infant and the way, when he couldn’t sleep, I would stand up and rock him in my arms, take him outside, walk up and down the street, rocking him.
After a while I said, “I would never make you drive to find me.”
She didn’t answer.
“I would always take care of you.”
“That’s not really true, is it?” she said, but then she waved her hand, waved away an argument she didn’t feel like having.
“I did not rape Laura,” I whispered.
“I know.” But she didn’t know. And that’s why she kept me in the studio: even my own wife couldn’t quite believe me. Even after a lifetime of believing in me—there was doubt in our marriage now. There was fear. There was a rumor that had spread as quickly and thickly as lava, smothering our little town of Round Hill, that I had raped Laura Stern. I was an outcast, not because I’d lost Roseanne Craig, but because there were whispers of what I had done to my best friend’s daughter, and I could not prove I hadn’t done it. There was no lawyer in the world, no matter how much I paid, who could win my trial by rumor. So I’d been kicked out of my office. I lived in a studio above the garage. For months my marriage had gasped for breath. This was punishment for something I did not do, but this was also punishment for letting Roseanne Craig die on my watch. Right is right, and it was true that I’d been very wrong.
Elaine wiped a finger under her eye, but she wasn’t crying. Not really. Through all this, I don’t think my wife ever cried very much.
“Elaine—”
“Why would Laura lie, Pete?”
“I don’t know.” I would go through this a million more times if I had to.
“Why were there bloody pajamas?”
“I told you — I told you. We fought. I hit her.”
“I know,” she said. “You told me.” But she would never truly believe me, and she would have to live with that.
“I wish I knew how to feel,” she said. “I have no idea how to feel.
All I know is that I’m not … I’m not brave enough to start out on my own—”
“It’s not about bravery, Lainie—”
“I don’t feel like being alone,” she said. “That’s all.”
So tomorrow we would tick on, and tick on, and tick on. The forsythia by the driveway were blooming. The rabbits had eaten the heads off the daffodils.
I looked again at the U-Haul and caught on. “Alec’s leaving because you decided not to go to the lawyer.”
“Well,” she said, “no matter what, he was going to have to leave sometime.”
I tucked an errant piece of hair behind her ear, then moved my hand back to my lap. “I suppose he was.”
“You were always going to have to let him go eventually.”
“He’s already gone.”
“He might come back someday,” she said.
I looked again at the U-Haul,
SEE COLORADO
in red along its broad white side. My son and all his things. I took a breath; then I put my arm around my wife. We hadn’t touched like this in many months.
“I could change my mind one day, you know.”
“I know,” I said. “That’s okay.”
We sat like that, my arm around her, feeling her soft, warm skin under her flowered blouse. My wife, my porch, my forsythia by the driveway. I had done enough to lose them all, and yet here they were.
“I’m going to go in,” she said. “I’m making stir-fry for dinner.”
“Okay.”
“There’s some white wine in the fridge. One of the bottles from downstairs. I could open it if you want.”
“That sounds great,” I said. I listened to her walk up the creaky old
porch steps, wonderful, wonderful wife, and open the door and close it behind her, and my eye caught the U-Haul again,
SEE COLORADO,
and again I was so lost.
So Now I sit on the porch of this old Victorian house we bought twenty-five years ago with dreams of our children and our lives bursting from us, ambition and hope bursting from us. My wife is inside making dinner. There’s a bottle of white in the fridge. I close my eyes and lean my head back against the wooden banister that leads from the stairs to our front door. Will I sleep in my old bed this evening? Will Elaine want to join me in the studio? Will she want to make love to me? Will I still have even that?
There’s a stomp stomp stomp behind me. A young man with a heavy box.
“Alec,” I offer. Of all the undeserved good things that have happened to me today, this is the one I want the most.
“Alec,” I say again, getting up and walking toward him. He ignores me, balances the box on one knee while he opens the back of the U-Haul. I am standing next to my son. I haven’t stood this close to him in a long time. I watch him heave the box into the back of the truck. The truck is filled with his things — canvases and clothing and palettes and easels. His stereo. His Samsonite. If he holds on a minute, I’ll get him the books from the studio. There’s that pile of magazines. The short stories his friend left him. If he only hangs on a minute, I’ll help him —
“Alec—” I say as he slams the back of the truck shut again. He climbs into the front seat. He’s so tall, my son. He’s so sure of where he’s going.
“Alec—” But it’s too late. I watch him turn the engine on and drive away down Pearl Street. He makes a left at the end of the street.
He’s heading north, up toward the Palisades. From there, he might be going anywhere. The U-Haul has left a trail of blackish oil on our drive and down our street, and it could lead him back like Hansel if he needs to come back home.
Although right now, at least, he’s not going to come back home.
But I cannot, I will not, despair. One day, God willing, my son will understand. He’ll have children of his own and then he’ll understand. There’s nothing a father won’t do for his children. He will steal, he will plunder, he will desecrate himself. It doesn’t matter, as long as the child is safe. One day, I know, my son will understand this: everything I’ve ever done in my life — I’ve done it for him.
I’
D LIKE TO
first thank the physicians in my life: Dr. Brust, for the fact checking, Dr. Erlebacher, for the great idea, Dr. Gross, for showing me the funny side of obstetrics, and Dr. Grodstein, for being such a terrific father. Thanks, too, to Elliot Grodstein, almost a doctor, every bit my shoulder to lean on. Thanks to the Kennedys, especially Jessie, for her perfect title, spot-on editing, and invaluable friendship. Thanks to my writers and readers: Kelly Braffet, Gordon Haber, Hannah Harlow, Val Kiesig, Binnie Kirshenbaum, Adam Mansbach, and Lisa Zeidner, who not only read my drafts but also made sure I ate dinner. My beloved grandmother, the late Carolyn Edelstein, read an early draft and gave me ceaseless encouragement. Adele Grodstein proved it’s possible to be both a wonderful mother and a practicing artist. The Paris American Academy gave me space and time to write, and the faculty at Rutgers-Camden provided sustaining collegiality, especially my friends in the English Department. Dr. Jon’a Meyer shared her illuminating research into neonaticide. Kate Elton and Georgina Hawtrey-Woore showed me how to make a good story better, while Kathy Pories worked brilliantly and tirelessly on this book’s behalf. Rachel Careau provided exceptional copyediting, and William Boggess made me smile every time he picked up the phone.
Thanks always to Julie Barer, for every single thing, every single day.
Finally, and especially, thanks to Ben and Natey, for filling my life with love and joy.
The Best of Animals
Reproduction Is the Flaw of Love
A Friend of the Family
Copyright © 2009 by Lauren Grodstein.
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EPub Edition © DECEMBER 2010 ISBN: 978-1-443-40337-5
Published by HarperPerennial, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
FIRST CANADIAN EDITION
This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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