Fly Away Home (18 page)

“Do you have children?” she ventured.

He nodded. “Three boys. All grown. Frankie’s in New York, actually. He’s a banker. Ollie’s in grad school in Boston, and Tim Junior, my oldest, he and his wife have a baby girl, but he’s all the way in Seattle. My ex-wife moved out there. She helps with the baby.”

She nodded again, registering the
ex
in front of
wife
even as she made sympathetic noises about the distance to the West Coast. “Would you like to come to dinner? Help me eat some of this?” she blurted, gesturing toward the mountain of groceries. Heat rose in her cheeks as she realized what she’d done—had she just asked a man on a date? Not even three weeks after leaving her husband?

“Sure,” said Tim. He stuck his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels. “I think I remember the way.”

They agreed that they would meet at seven, that he could pick up a bottle of wine. Together, they unloaded the second cart. “Take care of Sylvie,” Tim said to the girl behind the cash register, and patted Sylvie, once, on her shoulder. “She’s a friend.”

It took Sylvie almost an hour to haul everything out of her car and put the food away. She worked carefully, using her legs, not her back, carrying the bags in one at a time, thinking all the while about what had happened in the grocery store—her challah-squeezing breakdown, her reunion with Tim. Once the food was crammed into the refrigerator or loaded onto the shelves, she peeled sweaty strands of hair off her cheeks and realized that she had absolutely no idea what to make Tim for dinner, or how to cook the majority of the things she’d purchased. Worse—much worse—she was going to be alone with a man who was not her husband or a relative, alone with a man she’d once kissed, for the first time in more years, more decades, than she cared to consider.

She stared at the rib roast, which was big as a baby under its white cap of fat, glistening and somehow reproachful, on the countertop. Scowling, Sylvie thought how much easier this would have been if she’d been a different kind of woman, a different kind of wife. There had been men, over the years, with whom she could have spent a few discreet hours or evenings while Richard was away. She’d had opportunities. Oh yes she had. There’d been a friend of Larry’s, an architect in town for a conference on sustainable design who’d was separated from his wife and stayed with Larry and Ceil. He’d told charming stories over Ceil’s veal and then taken her hand in the kitchen (she’d been washing, he’d been drying) and kissed her almost before she knew what was happening.
Please
, she’d said quietly, so as not to alarm Ceil, setting her wet hands on his chest and pushing him away. He’d given her a sheepish shrug and said,
Can’t blame a guy for trying
. Then, once, at a fund-raiser in their apartment, she’d found herself talking with a man about her age. He wore a beautifully cut suit (after years of picking out Richard’s clothes, she had learned to recognize and appreciate the weight and drape of certain fabrics and even the work of certain designers) and an expression, as he gazed around the room, that looked a lot like contempt.

“I’m with her,” the man had said, tilting his chin toward his wife. Elizabeth Cunningham, known professionally as Bitsy, was a spectacularly groomed woman with a narrow, horsey face, a prominent nose, and a braying voice. Bitsy wore a patterned wrap dress, black tights and high black leather boots. Her hair was elaborately streaked with copper and gold, the kind of hair that announced to the world that Bitsy could afford to spend four hours and five hundred dollars in a high-end salon every four weeks. Her fingers were freighted with rings, diamonds twinkled in her earlobes, and she was, of course, enviably thin, with hip bones that protruded through the jersey and a sternum as articulated as an anatomy chart, but none of it added up to beauty, thanks to Bitsy Cunningham’s perpetually sour expression. She looked, Ceil thought, like the kind of woman who’d as soon bite you as say hello.

Sylvie knew her story, which had been retold in more than one of the women’s magazines, and in the
Wall Street Journal
as well. Bitsy, married and bored, with round-the-clock nannies caring for the twins she’d paid a surrogate to carry, had made her fortune designing hundred-dollar hand-embroidered bibs and burp cloths that sold, Sylvie assumed, to women who had no idea what it was like to try to get spit-up stains out of Irish linen … or, more likely, to young mothers who, like Sylvie, had nannies and cleaning ladies to do it for them. Bitsy’s Bibs had spawned a successful line of children’s clothing, everything from miniature tutus to teeny tiny tuxedos that were now sold in fine department stores around the world. Bitsy probably earned ten times what her high-powered husband made at his investment firm each year. She collected politicians like other women collected handbags, or porcelain figurines. As Sylvie watched, Bitsy tilted her face and honked her laugh at Richard, who smiled back so warmly you’d never know he’d told Sylvie that they should put out a bowl of sugar cubes and maybe a carrot or two along with the rest of the appetizers. (“Don’t be mean,” Sylvie had said, swatting him.)

“You know what my job is?” Mr. Bitsy had murmured in the vicinity of Sylvie’s ear. He was, she knew, the CFO of Bitsy’s company, having left a job at a hedge fund to manage his wife’s business. “It’s the same as yours. We carry their purses. We hand them their mints, and their Purell.”

“Oh, no,” Sylvie demurred, even though she had both of those items in her purse at that very moment. Nor did she want to tally the times Richard had nonchalantly given her something, a folder or a coat or a briefcase, to hold while he shook hands with someone more important, or the times she’d slipped a tin of Altoids into his pocket, or run the lint brush over his shoulders. This wasn’t servitude, nor was it degrading, it was simply what married people did for each other. But then a troubling thought surfaced: Had Richard ever once returned the favor? Had he ever offered her a mint, or the lint brush? As she wondered, Mr. Bitsy slipped his card into her hand. “Call me,” he said, his face so close to hers that she could feel his whiskers against her cheek. “I think we’d have a lot to talk about.”

Of course, she’d never called. She’d thrown out his card, and, when the party was over, she’d asked Richard what he and Bitsy had been laughing about. “Oh, she was telling me all about how she got bumped out of the big dressing room on the
Today
show because the teenage track star they interviewed showed up with her six brothers and sisters,” Richard had said, helping her clear the bowls of nuts and olive pits and carry them into the kitchen, where Marta would wash them the next morning. “I told her I’d get right on it. Call my friends at Amnesty International. Get some ‘Justice for Bitsy’ T-shirts made up.” Sylvie had smiled, and hadn’t told him about Mr. Bitsy and his business card. The poor man was just bitter, as any man would be, living in the shadow of a woman who was so entitled and so obviously unpleasant. Her life wasn’t like his at all. She and Richard had a partnership. Well. Look how much she had to be smug about. Look how that had turned out.

She poked at the meat with one finger, then flipped open her laptop. Thankfully, Ceil was home. “Rib roast,” her friend coached, with her face looking out, disconcertingly, from the screen (Skyping was another trick Diana had taught her, one she’d actually mastered). “It’s the easiest thing in the world.” Ceil had a fabric flower clipped in her hair, and a smear of pink lipstick on her lips—her going-to-town look, Sylvie knew, which meant she’d been at music class that morning, and maybe even that Suri Cruise had shown up.

“Also the most expensive,” Sylvie murmured.

“Spend his money,” Ceil said. “It’s the least you can do. Do you have butcher’s twine? Never mind. Just get your floss. I know you’ve got that.” Sylvie managed a smile—she and Ceil shared a periodontist, who was practically evangelical on the subject of flossing. Ceil talked Sylvie through slicing the meat off the bones, then tying it back on with floss. “What’s the point of this?” Sylvie asked, and Ceil, who’d been reading aloud from
Us Weekly
while Sylvie worked, said, “Don’t know, but it’s just how it’s done.”

“Now you salt and pepper it, sear it in a hot pan until it’s brown, stick it in the oven at three hundred degrees, and you’re set.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. And it’ll be spectacular.”

For a side dish, Sylvie was going to make mashed potatoes. Ceil had assured her that even she couldn’t screw that up: boil them in salted water until they were soft, mash them, add salt and pepper and butter and half-and-half until they tasted right. And she’d caramelize carrots and parsnips, which involved putting them into a cast-iron pan, sprinkling them with sea salt and rosemary, pouring a little olive oil on top, and putting the pan in the oven along with the meat. “It’s Home Cooking 101,” said Ceil. She paused—up until now they’d confined their conversation to the logistics of getting dinner on the table (“ask him to carve” had been Ceil’s last word on that subject).

“You-know-who called again this morning,” Ceil finally said.

Sylvie sighed. “Again?” Richard, she knew, had been calling her friend daily, leaving messages asking if she’d heard from Sylvie, and if Sylvie was ready to talk.

“He’s nothing if not reliable. But don’t worry. He’s still just talking to my voice mail.”

“Thank you,” Sylvie murmured. She felt … oh, she didn’t know how she felt! Furious and betrayed and worried about Richard all on his own, and touched that they were still connected; still, in the face of such terrible betrayal, such endless humiliation, husband and wife. “How did he …” How did he sound? What had he said? Was he broken, a changed man? Had he cried? What was he eating for dinner, and whom was he having it with? Would Joelle bring him pizza or a sandwich? Did she know he had to watch his cholesterol? Her head was swirling, and she had dinner to deal with, dinner and Tim Simmons.

“I’m not taking his calls, but if I had to guess, I’d say he wants you back,” said Ceil.

“Because I’m useful to him.” The word
useful
came out with a spiteful, bitter twist.

“Oh, cookie,” said Ceil. “It isn’t just that. He loves you. And you have such history together.”

Sylvie laughed. Such history. Of course, Richard had ensured that the part of their history the world would remember was the bit where he had fucked a legislative aide. Not the parent-teacher conferences they’d attended (Richard would always rearrange his schedule so that he could be there), not the birthday parties for the girls they’d hosted, not the twenty-fifth-anniversary trip they’d taken to Paris, where they’d eaten at three Michelin-starred restaurants and he’d given her a diamond bracelet as they walked along the Seine. “I should go,” she said to the screen.

“Enjoy your meat,” said Ceil, with a saucy grin. “And call me later. I want a report.”

Sylvie tied one of her grandmother’s old aprons around her waist. She seasoned the meat and set it carefully into the sizzling oil in the cast-iron skillet, turning it with tongs until each side was brown and crisp. She put it in the oven, seasoned the vegetables, and put them in, too. She set the table, locating a tablecloth and good napkins, silverware and wineglasses, washing what needed to be washed, arranging a bouquet of gerbera daisies, bright orange and hot-pink, that she barely remembered buying in a blue glass vase, and setting that in the center of the table.

Just before seven o’clock, headlights washed over the kitchen. A car door slammed. Sylvie wiped her hands on her apron and made sure the matches were out for the candles. As Tim climbed out of the car, she felt her heart sink—by now he’d probably Googled her to fill in the blanks; by now it was 100 percent guaranteed that he knew what had brought her back to Fairview.

“Hello there,” he called, jogging up the porch’s three sagging steps. There was a bottle of wine tucked under one arm, a Simmons tote bag in the other, and he looked so boyish, so vital, so different from Richard, who was always in a suit and whose skin always retained a certain indoor pallor and who never ran anywhere, except on the treadmill after his doctor said he had to. Sylvie raised her hand. “Hello to you,” she said, and nudged the door with her hip, letting the light and the warmth and the good smells of dinner brighten and scent the night air.

LIZZIE

“So can we talk about it?” Lizzie asked her sister. It was a Wednesday morning, two weeks since the press conference where their father had announced that he would not be leaving the Senate.

“Talk about what?” Diana asked. Her tone was neutral, but Lizzie could tell her guard was up.

Lizzie sat cross-legged in one of the kitchen chairs. Diana stood at the counter, pulling clean silverware from the dishwasher basket and placing it in the drawer, a task that went quickly because Diana always loaded forks with forks and spoons with spoons before she washed them.

The whole time Lizzie had been in Philadelphia, her sister’s morning routine never varied. Diana would get up at five-thirty for her run and come home forty-five minutes later, drenched in sweat, or rain if it was raining. She’d gulp down a protein shake, start a pot of coffee, take a shower, and dry her hair. By the time Milo and Lizzie and Gary came downstairs at seven, Diana would have the dishwasher emptied, the counters wiped, toast in the toaster, cereal and juice on the table, and her commuter mug filled with black coffee.

“Dad,” Lizzie said, a little impatiently. “I want to talk about Dad.” She also wanted to talk about Diana’s frequent absences from the house on Spruce Street, and why her sister had been sleeping on the couch in the living room instead of in bed with her husband, but she’d decided to start with the elephant in the room.

That morning, Lizzie had set her alarm for six-thirty, intending to catch her sister post-run, pre-breakfast. Since that first night, she and Diana had barely discussed the situation at all … and every time Lizzie brought it up, Diana would find a way to avoid the topic. She’d point her chin at Milo and say, “Little pitchers have big ears,” or she’d tell Lizzie that she had to go to the gym, or back to work, where she’d forgotten something. Maybe that was where her stress was showing. Diana had never been forgetful, but lately, she’d been running back to the hospital after dinner every night or two to retrieve her purse or her cell phone or her cell-phone charger. Lizzie wondered if she was using the time away from home to talk to someone—a friend, assuming Diana had one, or a therapist. Maybe she was just walking alone by herself trying to make sense of it. Maybe she was crying.

“What about Dad?” Diana grabbed a handful of knives out of the basket and put them, with a noisy rattle, into the drawer. Lizzie sighed. Diana had always treated her like a waste of space with nothing useful to say. It had gotten worse after Lizzie’s first trip to rehab, and Diana’s attitude had not improved during the time Lizzie had been in her sister’s employ. Any fantasy she’d had about forging a new and deep connection with her sister during her summer in Philadelphia had been dashed her first night in the row house. “I have an amends to make,” she’d announced, approaching Diana in the living room after Milo had fallen asleep, and Diana, who’d been reading a medical journal while texting on her BlackBerry, had laughed at her, and then said, “Whatever it is, I’ll forgive you if you’ll wipe the toilet off after Milo uses it in the morning.”

“Have you talked to them?” Lizzie asked. Diana shrugged. Lizzie continued, “Maybe we could go see Dad. See how he’s doing. And then we can go see Mom in Connecticut.”

Diana shrugged again, her hands still full of dishes, an exasperated look on her face.

“We could bring Milo. Do, like, a road trip. It could be fun.”

At the word
fun
, Diana rolled her eyes. She set down the plates and took a long swallow from her coffee mug. “I don’t have time for a road trip right now.”

Lizzie nodded. This was what she had expected. She watched as Diana bent and began emptying the top rack of the dishwasher, lining up mugs and glasses on the counter. Scandal seemed to agree with her sister: Diana’s skin was clear, her hair shiny, and her body, already lean from running, seemed more graceful than usual. Instead of squatting to retrieve the basket of silverware, Diana bent from the waist, letting her hair sweep down, obscuring her face. Her breasts pressed against the front of her white blouse, which was dazzling against her tan skin. Lizzie wondered whether Sniffling Gary appreciated her sister, and bet herself that he didn’t. She wondered, again, about Diana’s early mornings and late nights, how she’d been sleeping on the couch and the way she kept forgetting things at the hospital.

“Maybe you’re right,” Lizzie said, thinking out loud. “Maybe we should just let them be.” She helped herself to a cup of coffee, adding cream and sugar that she’d had to buy with her own money because Diana didn’t keep anything besides skim milk and agave nectar in the house. “I don’t know. The whole thing’s just gross. Entitlement,” she said, hoisting herself onto the counter, parroting one of the words she’d heard someone on TV use. “Do you think that’s what it was? Like, powerful men just think they can take what they want, and who cares if it hurts anyone?”

A shadow moved across Diana’s face. “Maybe he was unhappy.”

That was surprising. Lizzie had never known her sister to care about anyone else’s unhappiness, or even to notice it. Certainly, Diana had never paid much attention to Lizzie’s unhappiness. “Why would Dad be unhappy? He had a wife who devoted her entire life to him.”

Diana shrugged. “Maybe they grew apart. Maybe they weren’t in love anymore. How can we know?”

This was even more surprising. Diana generally claimed to know everything about everyone, or to at least be able to give an educated guess. “But if you’ve been married that long, don’t you owe it to the marriage to stay faithful? Not to mention your kids.”

“We aren’t kids,” Diana said. A glass slipped from her hand onto the countertop, and would have shattered on the floor if Diana hadn’t managed to grab it. “We’re grown-ups. We’re adult women, and it shouldn’t matter to us.”

“Of course it matters!” Lizzie said. “No matter how old we are, they’re our parents, and I think—”

“We were his props,” Diana said, her voice uncharacteristically sharp. “You know that, right?” She lowered her chin, approximating their father’s tone and stance. “ ‘My daughter, the doctor, the emergency-room physician, stands on the front lines of the health care crisis facing this nation.’ ” Lizzie nodded. She’d heard her father deliver that line more than once, usually with Diana standing beside him or behind him, tall and formidable in her suit and high heels. Diana was the daughter he used at press appearances and rallies. Lizzie herself was rarely spoken of. “A student,” her father would say when anyone asked. Hardly anyone did. Lizzie had been more useful when she was a cute little girl with curly blond hair who’d worn pretty dresses and had been schooled in how to stand on a stage and listen, or look as if she was listening, attentively.

“Let’s be honest.” Diana slid the last glass into the cabinet, then closed the cabinet door and turned toward Lizzie. “They weren’t exactly going to win any parent of the year prizes.” She gave Lizzie a meaningful look. Lizzie swallowed hard.

“Dad was a good father,” she said, even though, deep down, Lizzie suspected it was not entirely true. “And maybe he needs us,” she ventured.

Her sister began wiping a counter that looked spotless already. “And when we needed them,” she asked, “where were they?” She raised her eyes, staring straight into Lizzie’s own. Lizzie felt goose bumps prickle her skin. Clearly, Diana had figured this was the one card in her hand that she could play against her sister, and she’d keep playing it until Lizzie gave up.

She couldn’t sit still a second longer. She slid off the counter, hurried out of the kitchen, and took the stairs two at a time until she was up in her room, which was already stifling in the summer heat. Flopping facedown on her bed, she squeezed her eyes shut, with her sister’s words echoing in her head.

When she was twelve she’d looked sixteen, especially if she wore eyeliner and a blouse that showed off her top. There’d been a boy, a prep school junior who’d lived in her building and smiled at her in the elevator when he came home for breaks. She got a job babysitting for the boy’s half sister, and one night the boy came home from a party smelling of beer and cigarettes, a little sloppy, wiping his wet lips on the back of his oxford shirtsleeve and grinning when he saw her on the couch. “When’s the missus coming back?” he’d asked—the missus was what he called his stepmother, who was only twenty-nine years old. “Eleven,” Lizzie told him—it was just after nine o’clock then. He’d given Lizzie her first drink, a vodka and cranberry juice, and after she’d had two of them, he’d given her her first kiss. And then …

She sprang off the bed, but she could still picture herself, with her eyes darkened with Mrs. Ritson’s eyeliner and mascara (she’d been trying it on before his arrival), her blouse unbuttoned, her lips swollen from his kisses and her cheeks and chin abraded by his stubble.
Come on
, he’d told her.
Don’t be a tease. You know you want it, too
. Then he’d grabbed her wrist, yanking her back down beside him, and somehow his fly was open, his penis sticking out from his white boxer shorts like some kind of ridiculous pink jack-in-the-box, a bald, featureless head on a thick, veined neck.
No
, Lizzie had whispered, but she hadn’t said it very loud, and when the boy put his hand on the back of her neck she’d bent down willingly enough, telling herself it would be over fast. She could wash her face and rebraid her hair and go back to being a girl.

She hadn’t counted on the memories: his fingers digging into the flesh of her neck, the way he’d talked to her, the disgusting things he’d said, the lazy smile he’d given her as he tucked his wilted penis back into his pants.
Not bad. Maybe I’ll see you around
. She’d gone straight to the bathroom and barfed and then she’d run upstairs, not even waiting for the elevator, and told her sister everything. Diana had told her parents. And her parents had …

Lizzie rolled off the bed. It was seven o’clock, the start of her workday. Downstairs, Diana was still in the kitchen, smiling at her BlackBerry. She looked up as Lizzie walked in.

“You okay?”

Lizzie gathered herself, smoothing her hair and putting on a smile. “Fine.” Diana tucked her BlackBerry into her pocket. Lizzie wasn’t positive, but she thought her sister’s face looked flushed. Or maybe it was just a by-product of her morning run. Even this early, the air outside was steamy and thick as soup.

“Gotta go,” said Diana, grabbing her keys and her sunglasses and shoulder bag and giving her hair a quick flip in the mirror beside the front door. Lizzie had seen her do the grab-and-flip a hundred times over the summer, but today her sister seemed … she stared, trying to think of the right word, finally arriving at
glowing
. Diana was glowing. Lizzie wondered, briefly, whether she could possibly be pregnant before dismissing the thought instantly. Diana had told everyone who’d asked, and probably plenty of people who didn’t, that she wanted only one child, that she couldn’t afford to take the time off a baby would require at this point in her career. Any fetus foolish enough to take up residence in her sister’s uterus would be dealt with swiftly and harshly, Lizzie figured. That was if she and Gary were still having sex, which Lizzie seriously doubted. As far as she could tell, Gary reserved most of his passion for his laptop and the Phillies, and Diana couldn’t get knocked up if she was sleeping on the couch.

“Can you give Milo breakfast?”

“Sure.” Giving Milo his breakfast entailed either toasting a slice of Ezekiel bread or pouring him a bowl of high-fiber Kashi. Lizzie could handle it. Gary probably could, too, if it had ever occurred to him to feed his son, although, from what Lizzie had seen, Gary had enough trouble just getting himself dressed and out the door each morning.

Once her sister was striding along the sidewalk, her hair loose and bouncing over her shoulders as she walked, Lizzie went to the living room and began picking up the mess Gary left behind each night—the pair of beer bottles and crumpled Kleenexes on the side table, his shoes and his inside-out socks in front of the couch, an empty cereal bowl with the spoon milk-glued to the bottom that sat like a sculpture on the coffee table. She carried the shoes to the closet, dropped the socks in the laundry basket, and put the dishes in the dishwasher. She plumped the pillows, then sat on the couch, waiting for Milo to wake up so that her workday could begin.

Finally, at seven-thirty, Milo followed his father down the stairs, hair uncombed, dressed in what had become his summer uniform: a pair of khaki shorts, a dark-blue short-sleeved T-shirt, boat-sized sneakers (Milo was of average height but his feet were enormous), and one of his dozens of hats—this morning, it was a tweed plaid newsboy’s cap, tugged down low. “Good morning!” Lizzie said, as Milo rubbed at his eyes. Gary grunted a hello, picked up his work bag, and walked out the door. Lizzie served Milo toast on one of the salad plates Diana insisted on (a smaller plate made portions look larger, she said), and poured him a bowl of Kashi. “What should we do today?”

“Can we go see Jeff?” he asked, sounding surprisingly eager to leave the house.

She told him that they could, and, when he was done with breakfast and had consented to comb his hair, they walked together to Independence Hall. Jeff was speaking to a group of tourists, crisp and handsome in his khaki uniform and wide-brimmed hat. “Hey, guy!” he greeted Milo, who greeted him with a shy “hello” and a smile. They lined up for the Liberty Bell, Lizzie snapping pictures, not of the bell itself but of the tourists’ faces, some avid and some bored, as they came close enough to see it. Then they joined Jeff’s tour as he led them into Independence Hall, telling the story of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, explaining to the tourists that this—this building, this room where they were standing—was the place where the United States of America had become a free land.

They went to Whole Foods for Jeff’s lunch break, sharing a Diana-approved meal of organic hummus, carrots, and whole-wheat pita. For dessert, Milo asked for, and received, a gluten-free carob brownie. Jeff took a bite and then spat it out into his recycled-paper napkin. “You like this?” he asked, wiping his lips over and over, as if to eradicate the taste, and Milo, giggling, had shrugged and said, “It’s okay.”