Dream House (29 page)

Lester was quiet for a few moments. Finally he asked again, “Have I said too much?”

“No, no. I really appreciate being able to talk about Mom and Dad. When we were growing up, Mom was very unhappy. They were so different . . . It was hard to figure out how they got together in the first place. And why they stayed together.”

“I think Ron had never met someone like your mother, and he
loved that about her. They came from different worlds, but Ron seemed just fine with her friends, even though they were partiers—quick-witted college kids—and Ron was . . . more modest. His aspirations were focused on Whit's Point. You know, in a way, he was the perfect cure for . . . well . . . your mother had had her share of heartbreak, and Ron probably made her feel in control of her life again.”

Gina was about to say, “Tell me about the heartbreak!” when the nurse stuck her head in to check Lester's vitals. She adjusted his pillow and, as she was leaving, wagged a finger at Lester. “Don't wear yourself out, Mr. Bridges.”

“We're on a mission,” Lester said, winking at Gina.

She understood then that it wasn't just the medication making him candid. Suddenly, it felt like a gift, not an accident that had brought her together with Lester in the cold, confining room. Her parents had never needed caring for in this way; their accident had cheated her of an essential chapter in a family's life cycle—the one in which she could have held her mother's or father's hand and perhaps for once, been able to comfort them.

Lester batted at a fly. “Remember your ma's spider phobia? She didn't let herself think about certain things because it would have been like picking up a rock and finding a bunch of hairy spiders under it.”

“But what
were
those spiders?” Gina pressed. When he didn't respond right away, she said, “I mean, aside from the fact that she was bitter about being a creative person stuck as a housewife.”

“Oh, you bet—never underestimate
that,
” Lester said. “I think as much as she loved her home and her family, she felt trapped.”

All at once, Gina's mind flashed with the images she'd had at the house during the past two days, of her mother industrious and always caretaking, bending her small frame into that endless list of chores. “Let me out,” she'd seemed to be saying.

“Annie says I didn't know how good I had it, having a wife who worked and did everything else, too.” Lester looked pensively at the ceiling for a few moments, then turned to her. “What about you? You a happy working mother?”

Gina smiled and pushed back the emotion welling up in her. “Something happens when you become a mother . . . your ideas about fulfillment change. For starters, giving birth is a peak experience, like . . . like scaling a peak. Even better, I bet.” She was speaking in generalities; how could she know they were true for anyone but her? If she'd dared, she'd tell him that for her, motherhood was the anchor she'd never had. The chance to love as a mother in a way she'd failed to as a daughter, to whisper
I love you
in Esther and Ben's ears—words her parents had never said to her—and understand by the way her children pulled her closer, that they knew she meant it. But how could it be that the very thing that had made her most content in life had also made her feel the most vulnerable?

“Motherhood . . .” she went on. “Every mother I know is searching for balance. We're chronically conflicted and often judged. And we're our own harshest critics.” Her eyes filled as she pictured Esther's solemn face at the airport, and she could see in Lester's expression that he noticed. “I've been very afraid for my kids at times . . . too much so. It's like . . . like I'm walking around with my organs on the outside of my body.”

“It makes sense, doesn't it? You felt unprotected as a kid; why wouldn't you be afraid with your own kids?”

Gina smiled warmly and nodded, rendered mute by the power of Lester's words. How was it possible that one sentence could clarify years of struggle?

Lester dramatically raised one eyebrow. “So . . . is that a
yes
? Is there hope that happiness can spring from this motherhood maelstrom?”

Gina laughed. “Yes, yes. Happiness springs . . . in the most surprising ways.”

They were silent for a few minutes. The fluorescent tube overhead flickered, then steadied.

“Ron must've felt Eleanor knew best with you girls,” Lester said. “It's probably different for you; probably you and Paul take turns at the helm. I know Annie and I do. Sometimes I want her to take care of things. Other times I'm annoyed when she does. Now with this—” he pointed to his hip—“she's going to be waiting on me for weeks. I hate the thought!”

“Yes,” Gina agreed, “I know
exactly
what you mean.” For months, she'd been trying to stifle her grief and feelings of weakness because they made her feel like her mother, whose unhappiness had been unfathomable. And, Paul's worrying and insistent caring for her had reminded her of her father's constant and ineffective placating. Gina had been pushing Paul away when she'd needed him most. He couldn't win and now, she felt ashamed. “Damned if you do and damned if you don't,” she thought aloud. It was one of her father's many sayings.

Lester laughed. “‘If it ain't one thing, it's another!'”

Remembering her father's bottomless pocket of clichés, the jolly spin they put on life, Gina began to laugh, too. Her body was loosening, coming alive.

“At a certain point, you've
got
to laugh,” Lester said. “Do you know what your mother had done? That night your dad came looking for her at our house? She'd taken all the dinner she'd cooked . . . still in its pots and pans . . . She
. . . ha ha
! Oh my Lord! She took them down to the dock and pitched them into the cove. Then she drove herself to the Howard Johnson's for fried clams. The next day, your dad waited for low tide, put on his rubbah boots and fished the pots out of the mud.”

Gina had no memory of this and Lester's account struck her as hilarious. They both rocked with a fresh round of laughter.

When they stopped, she felt like staying quiet, like pausing along a
trail to enjoy a view. The room became porous again to the voices that came and went over the intercom. For what seemed a long time, Lester stared at the ceiling, then closed his eyes. Watching his hand rise and fall where it lay on his chest, Gina filled with a deep affection.

When something loudly bumped the door, Lester's eyes popped open, and he turned to her.

“Do you think you can forgive her?”

Gina was unprepared. This was a question to ask on a beach where it could be carried off by a gust, not in a windowless box where it bounced off the walls, looking for a way out. She wondered: if her mother had ever once said she was sorry for anything, if she'd asked for forgiveness, wouldn't that in itself have made her forgivable?

She couldn't yet find an answer for Lester.

“People talk a lot about forgiveness,” he said. “Real forgiveness is not possible sometimes. And anything less than the real thing demeans.”

Gina smiled. He must have been one hell of a guidance counselor.

Lester was being moved from the ER exam room to a hospital bed when Annie arrived at eight o'clock. Her face was strained with worry, and she moved uncomfortably in her beige linen suit and pumps.

“Lester! What on earth?” She rushed past Gina to his bed and pressed his arm.

“Now don't scold me. I wasn't getting into trouble; I just got up to grab a book from the shelf. Did you have enough gas?”

“Stop about the gas! I was fine. You tripped? You slipped?” Her annoyance couldn't disguise her fear.

“Oh, Lord, I don't remember. It's my damn hip though. I'll see the orthopedic guy in the morning.”

Annie fanned her face with a pamphlet that said
Heartstrong
!
“Geesh! Do you know it's still eighty-two degrees out there? Gina, you must be exhausted. Go home now, dearie. Take a cool shower and have something to eat.”

Gina wasn't eager to go. But it was time to leave the two of them alone. She gave Lester's hand a squeeze, and when he smiled, she felt a shift inside her, something moving over to make room for something else.

Lily House spooked her when she walked in, heavy with the day. Without Annie and Lester's renewing presence, it seemed to return to the sad Lily House of her memory. When the phone rang and she startled, she realized how tense she was. She let it ring and pulled vegetables for a salad from the refrigerator. The answering machine beeped. Worried that Annie might be trying to reach her, she listened to the message.

“Mom, it's Mike. I got your message. Wondering how Dad's doing . . . hoping he's okay. Give me a call and let me know. Karen and I are happy to fly home if you need us. Okay. Give a call. Love you.”

Gina tried to picture Mike, whom she hadn't seen since a Whit's Point Sunday night picnic when she was twelve or thirteen, and wondered if she'd be able find his phone number to call him back. She went into Annie and Lester's bedroom where Annie's little antique desk was covered with bills, newspaper clippings, and receipts. Above the desk hung a group of family photographs, some of which Gina knew had been taken by her father. Tall and athletically built, Mike and his brother Randy both had their mother's close-set eyes. In one picture, the boys, in their twenties, stood with Annie between them, their arms firmly around her shoulders. There was a comfortableness about their posture, as if they'd found themselves together this way often. Gina couldn't remember an equivalent photograph in
her parents' collection.

“I've always preferred the company of men. I always thought I'd have sons,” Gina remembered her mother saying. The betrayal within had hurt Cassie the most, but Gina had felt it, too. Sometimes Gina imagined that her mother lumped her grown daughters in with those “unpreferred” women who were jealous and cagey, prone to stealing anything you cared about. She'd even managed to make her daughters' growing up seem like a spiteful act of stealing from her.

Eleanor had been careful to amend: “Having girls turned out perfectly.” But it hadn't really. Girls were pricklier than boys and unwittingly tuned to their mothers' variability. This was true of Esther, too, but Gina welcomed the challenge to get it right with Esther, which is why their current misunderstanding plagued her so.

Gina spotted a typed list of phone numbers and was about to call back Mike when the phone rang again.

“Who's this?” a man asked when Gina answered.

When she told him, he said “Oh, hi, Gina. It's Mike. Mom mentioned you'd be visiting. I hope all's well with you . . . Mom called an hour or more ago when we were out on the boat. I'm wondering about Dad—do you know if he's okay?”

Gina told Mike all that she knew. Mike worried that he and Karen should fly back from Alaska, but Gina reassured him that Lester was being well taken care of.

“Okay, well, tell Mom to call me when she gets home. And can you let me know if something changes? Thanks for everything. I'm so grateful you're there. Mom was thrilled that you were going to stay with them. You can probably tell she loves having
girls
around!”

When they hung up, Gina felt something settle inside her, as if she was in just the right place for the first time since she'd boarded the plane in San Francisco. But she was exhausted to the bone. She made her salad, ate it quickly, and went straight to bed. When she'd
stretched out, she called home.

Ben answered. “I have a birthday present for you!”

“You do? I can't wait to get home and see it!”

“It's a really, really super special present! Here's Dad.”

“What are you doing for your birthday tomorrow?” Paul asked.

“I haven't had a chance to think about it. Hopefully, Lester will come home tomorrow. I'll call you at some point so I can talk to the kids and tell them we'll have cake when I get back on Sunday.”

“Okay . . . I'm thinking of taking them up to Point Reyes tomorrow. I'm not sure. If I do, there might not be phone service. But in any case, we'll be home by seven or so.”

Gina's heart sank at the thought that she would miss a fun family outing on her birthday. “Okay,” she said.

“Oh, so get this,” Paul said. “Esther insisted I take her to Mervyn's to buy a bra. Apparently, she's been wanting one for months. Of course, I haven't seen it on her and have no idea if it fits, so you'll have to see.”

Paul's pleasure that Esther would trust him with this errand was so evident that Gina withheld her surprise; Esther didn't even have buds! “It sounds like things are going well there,” she said.

“It's been really nice to be with the kids alone. You all right?”

“I'm glad I came.” She'd begun to feel that this was true.

After they'd hung up, Gina pictured Paul in the house with the kids and thought of Lester's comment about parents “taking turns at the helm.” This had not been easy for her with Paul. As sure as she'd been about him when they married, she'd plunged into motherhood with eyes wide open, high beams on, unable to trust that they'd avoid making her parents' mistakes. She tried to
be there
for Esther and Ben, in six places at the same time if needed. To be, it occurred to her now, both the mother and father she hadn't had, even though the very qualities that made Paul an extraordinary partner—his warmth and sensitivity, patience, and quick sense of humor—made him an
exceptional father, too.