Fly Away Home (32 page)

She looked down at the paper napkin she’d torn into shreds, the sandwich she hadn’t touched. “I’ve never had a boyfriend,” she said. Somehow that was more painful to admit than that she’d been an addict and that she’d gotten pregnant.

“Well, you’ve never had a baby, either,” Jeff pointed out.

Head still bent, Lizzie sighed.

“Can I see you?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she mumbled. “I don’t know where I’ll be living, or what I’ll do for work … ”

“We’ll figure it out,” said Jeff. His blue eyes were wide and serious. “We would talk on the phone. I would visit you up here, or in New York, and you could visit me in Philadelphia. We’d go out to dinner. Possibly to movies. There could be Broadway shows. Do you like Broadway shows?”

“Musicals,” said Lizzie. At least, she’d liked them when she was a kid and, over the long Thanksgiving weekends, she’d been taken to see
Dreamgirls
and
West Side Story
and
The Sound of Music
.

“We would learn about each other. We’d see if we really got along, which I bet we will.” He raised his hands. “And, honestly, the idea that there’s a kid who’s out there, a kid who’s mine, and I don’t have anything to do with him, or his mom, that I don’t know him …”

“Or her,” Lizzie said.

He nodded. “Or her. Whatever happens.” He breathed in, looking her right in the eyes. “I want to be part of the kid’s life. And I want us to have a chance.”

Lizzie studied him, wishing, again, that she’d led a normal life like her sister, because if she had, she’d have a better sense of people, a better idea of whether this guy was lying to her or whether he was sincere; whether this was about getting to know her and being a father or he had ulterior motives regarding money, or her father, or something else, something worse, something she hadn’t even thought of yet. Maybe he wanted her to have the baby so he could sell it on the black market. That had happened in a book she’d taken out of the lending library in Minnesota, only in the book the pregnant women had been mail-order brides lured over from Russia with promises of riches and American husbands. The people doing the selling had included a corrupt lawyer and a psychotic former child star, one of whom had ended up dead, the other of whom had told her story on
Oprah
. So maybe not.

“Do you think …” She swallowed hard, feeling that sensation of wings beating inside her, a tiny bird trapped in an attic, an unfamiliar hopefulness. “Do you think we’d be good parents?”

Jeff considered. “I don’t see why we wouldn’t be.” He took a spoonful of soup, a sip of water. “I also think you can learn from people’s mistakes. My mom wasn’t the greatest, and I know that whatever I do wrong, it won’t be what she did.”

Lizzie nodded. Learning from mistakes. That sounded good. It meant that she could practically be a genius.

“Eat something,” Jeff told her, picking up his sandwich. “You need extra calories now, right?”

They ate quietly for a few minutes, and when the check came, Jeff paid it.

“I have to get some groceries,” Lizzie said.

“I’ll come with you,” he offered.

“Don’t you have work?”

“It’s Thanksgiving. I took the week off.” He managed a smile. “And even if I left right now it’s five hours back to Philadelphia. Come on, Lizzie,” he said, and held out his hand. “I can carry your bags. I can do that for you, at least.”

They walked down the street to Simmons Grocery. Lizzie pushed the shopping cart, and Jeff followed behind her as she filled it. For a moment, she allowed herself the fantasy that this could work, that the two of them could be a normal couple, mother and father and the baby they raised together. Unlikely, she decided, putting milk and butter into the cart … but maybe it was possible. It happened to other people. Why not her, too?

He insisted on paying for the groceries, and on carrying everything but a small bag of onions up to the house. “So,” he said, in the driveway. “Do I get to meet your parents?”

She looked at him, shifting the mesh bag in her hands. “It’s just my mom.”

“That’s another part of it, too,” he told her. “The boyfriend-girlfriend thing. Meeting the parents.”

Lizzie nodded, thinking that as she made her belated, one-step-forward, two-steps-back journey into adulthood, a trip that had recently been hastened by her pregnancy, at some point she would have to trust her instincts. And she’d also have to trust other people, too. She set her hand on the brass handle of the door and swung it open. Inside, the sunshine made rectangular patterns on the hardwood floor, and she could smell bread baking in the kitchen.

“They don’t know about …” Her voice trailed off as she gestured toward her belly. Jeff’s eyebrows rose, but all he said was “Okay.”

Lizzie swung the door open and took his hand. “Come on in.”

SYLVIE

On Thanksgiving morning, Sylvie stood with her hands on her hips, looking over the table. The blue-and-white dishes and crystal glasses sparkled, the creamy linen napkins that she’d ironed the night before looked just right. Except for the fire crackling in the living room and the drip and hiss of the coffeepot, the house was quiet. Diana, still troublingly thin, but not as gaunt as she’d been in October, had gone down to the beach for a run, with Milo trailing behind her. Lizzie and her young man were still upstairs, asleep. Sylvie had given Jeff his own bedroom, but she suspected that he was sneaking into Lizzie’s at night.

Sylvie had been surprised—really, she’d been astonished—when, two days earlier, Lizzie had breezed through the door with a handsome young man carrying her groceries behind her. At first she’d wondered whether Lizzie had picked Jeff up at the supermarket. Her daughter had pulled stunts like that before. “This is Jeff. He’s a friend of mine from this summer,” she’d said, which didn’t help Sylvie at all: “summer” could have meant Philadelphia, or could have meant rehab. She looked him over—his short hair, his glasses, his neatly pressed shirt, his handsome face and friendly manner. Philadelphia, she decided. Unless he’d been in rehab, too, and the clean-cut appearance and the small talk were just overcompensation.

“Will you be joining us for Thanksgiving?” she’d asked, and Jeff said, “Oh, no, I don’t want to impose,” but it turned out he had no plans—his parents were divorced, his mother in New Mexico, celebrating with friends, and his father in Arizona with his new wife and her family. “If it’s all right with Lizzie,” he’d finally said, and Lizzie, her voice oddly formal, had said, “That would be lovely.”

Standing at the sink, looking out over the lawn that she and her daughters had raked over the weekend, Sylvie washed her hands and ran through her menu. She’d cook turkey and stuffing, of course. Lizzie, who’d displayed an awesome affinity for bread, rolls, and anything flour-based, was preparing corn bread, a cranberry loaf, buttermilk-cheddar biscuits, and Parker House rolls, a miracle four times over, because in years past Sylvie barely trusted her younger daughter to carry the butter to the table. There’d be Brussels sprouts in a balsamic vinegar glaze and a sweet-potato casserole. The Honorable Selma, who would arrive later that morning, was bringing an assortment of cheeses and pâtés, smoked fish and fancy crackers. Ceil and Larry were also on their way, with wine and mulled cider, and Tim was bringing pies for dessert.

When Lizzie and Jeff came down the stairs, Jeff dressed and Lizzie in a bathrobe, Sylvie slid the cheddar-and-sausage strata she’d prepared the night before out of the oven. Jeff set the kitchen table, and Lizzie poured juice, and, eventually, Diana, glowing and sweaty, came up from the beach with Milo trailing behind her, carrying his Frisbee. Sylvie had just taken her seat when a black Town Car came crunching up the driveway. “Grandma!” Lizzie cried, and in that moment, with her eyes sparkling and her round cheeks flushed, Sylvie could see, with heartbreaking clarity, the little girl that Lizzie had been. She watched through the window as her mother climbed out of the backseat, wrapped in an ancient mink that made her look like a small, Botoxed bear.

“Oh, Lord,” she murmured, noticing the writing on the car door.

“What?” asked Lizzie.

“That’s the car from her apartment complex,” Sylvie said, pointing at the words
DAVIDSON PAVILION
stenciled on its side. “It’s supposed to take her anywhere she wants to go within a five-mile radius.”

Diana smiled faintly. Lizzie hooted, clapping her hands together. “Way to go. Grandma hijacked the Hebrew Home car!” Selma tottered out onto the crushed shells, pressed a bill (probably a five, if Sylvie knew her mother) into the driver’s hand, and made her way up the porch steps.

Milo ran to open the door. Selma handed him her mink, revealing a black velour tracksuit and orthopedic shoes underneath it, and bent to kiss his forehead, which was the only part of him visible between his ski cap and the armload of fur. “My number one great-grandson!” she said, and handed him a lollipop she’d pulled from her purse, the kind Sylvie knew that they gave away free at her bank. “Sylvie,” she said, and kissed her daughter’s cheek. Then she looked at the girls, her gaze seeming to linger on Lizzie’s midriff. Sylvie’s heart sank—over the years, her mother had passed the occasional critical remark about Lizzie’s weight, and Lizzie was, she had to admit, significantly rounder than she’d been at the start of the summer. She hoped her mother would keep her mouth shut; would recognize that a few extra pounds were better than a drug problem.

“Well, well, well,” Selma said. She looked the way she always did, from her bright red lipstick and carefully curled hair to the bags beneath her eyes and the wrinkles that grooved her face. “What have we here?”

“I’m just visiting,” Lizzie said. “I hurt my back, and I was on bed rest for a while, but now I’m okay.” She took Jeff’s arm and pulled him beside her. “This is my friend Jeff Spencer from Philadelphia.” Selma lifted her penciled eyebrows as Jeff offered his hand. Sylvie could tell that Lizzie wanted to add something more:
No, really, it’s really just a visit, I’m okay
—but instead she said, “Want some coffee?”

“How about a Bloody Mary? Heavy on the horseradish.”

“Oh, Mom,” Sylvie murmured, and Selma turned her gimlet eye on her daughter.

“I am eighty-six years old,” she announced, in case her family had forgotten. “I am no longer employed, thanks to the antiquated mandatory-retirement laws of the state of New York. If I want to enjoy a little vodka in my tomato juice, I believe I have earned that privilege.” She turned back to Lizzie. “Unless it’s going to bother you.”

“Oh, no!” Lizzie said. “I’m fine.”

“Heavy on the horseradish,” Selma said again. Lizzie retreated into the kitchen. “Finish up your breakfast,” Diana told her son, “then start your independent reading.” Milo rolled his eyes and, with the sigh of a dwarf setting off for the coal mines, ate a slice of toast, then trudged up the stairs. Grandma Selma watched him go, then turned her gaze to Diana.

“That boy needs a tonic.”

“A tonic?” Diana was trying, and failing, to sound amused. “I think they went out with the mustard poultice.”

Selma’s driver had hauled the last of her luggage and bags from Zabar’s onto the porch. Sylvie slipped outside to give him two twenties. “Your mother’s a pip,” the man said. As if Sylvie didn’t know. When she got back to the foyer Selma was rummaging through one of her bags and continuing with her inquiries.

“Don’t tell me you’re on vacation,” she said to Diana, who was twisting the drawstring of her running pants around her index finger. “You don’t take vacations. Especially not when your son should be in school. What are you doing here?”

“Um,” Diana murmured.

“Speak up!” said Selma, who wore hearing aids in both ears and could hear just fine.

“She’s taking a break,” Sylvie said, hoping that would end the conversation. Selma ignored her, staring expectantly at Diana, who let go of her drawstring and let her hands hang by her sides.

“I left my husband,” she said.

“Good.” Selma seemed neither surprised nor perturbed. “I never liked the cut of his jib.”

“You didn’t?” Diana seemed surprised to hear it.

Selma turned and started rooting through her bag some more, eventually producing a pair of reading glasses that hung on a brightly colored beaded lariat. “I thought he was a big baby. I tell you, Diana, that marriage was very hard on me.”

“He’s going to be here,” Diana said. “For Thanksgiving.”

“In that case, I will keep my opinions to myself.” Selma pulled her glasses’ chain over her head, lifted the tote bag, and marched into the kitchen, where Lizzie was standing at the counter stirring a dollop of horseradish into a juice glass brimming with tomato juice and ice and, presumably, vodka. “So are you getting a divorce?” Selma called over her shoulder.

Diana’s voice trembled minutely as she said, “I think that’s the plan.”

“And you?” Grandma Selma asked, pointing at Sylvie. “My friend David could give you a two-for-one deal.”

“That’s very tempting, but I’m not sure what I want,” Sylvie said. She turned away, cutting herself a piece of the strata, then sat at the table and said, “Actually, there’s something I need to tell you.” She waited until she had her mother’s attention, then said, “I’ve been seeing someone.”

“Wait,” said Diana, who’d been pouring herself a cup of coffee. “Who? Tim? You and Tim are seeing each other? Seeing-seeing each other?”

“Yes,” said Sylvie, who wondered what Diana thought they’d been doing.

“Seeing each other like dating?” asked Lizzie. She made
dating
sound as if it was some kind of unnatural act, as if she and Tim were picking nits off each other’s scalps instead of sharing dinner and the occasional movie and, just once, her bed.

“Your mother has every right,” Selma said … and then, in a lower tone, added, “I’d think she’d have had enough of men for a while, but it’s her choice.” She sat at the kitchen table across from Sylvie with her drink and a plate, served herself strata, and pulled the
New York Times
out of her tote bag. “What’s his name?”

“Tim Simmons. He’ll be at dinner tonight.”

“Not Timmy Simmons who molested you out on the dunes?” Sylvie felt her jaw clench as her mother grinned, wondering if she was doomed to spend the rest of her life as a punch line, because her husband had cheated and because she’d dared, at her age, to go looking for love.

“He didn’t molest me,” she told her mother. “We kissed. And why were you watching?”

“Because I’d finished reading
Peyton Place
,” said Selma.

“So you guys were, like, summer lovers?” Diana asked. “Was he your boyfriend?”

“Not exactly,” Sylvie said.

“Could have fooled me!” said her mother. “That boy was sweet on you. He’s probably been sweet on you for the last …” She paused, counting, before making a face. “Never mind. It’s only going to depress me.”

Sylvie turned back to her breakfast, hoping no one would see her blush.

“Um,” said Lizzie. She’d lifted herself onto the counter and was swinging her legs, with Jeff standing beside her, munching a slice of toast.

“What?” asked Sylvie.

Lizzie swung her legs faster and fiddled with her hair. “This is awkward.”

“What’s awkward?” Selma demanded.

Her voice was barely a whisper. “I kind of invited Dad.”

“For Thanksgiving?” Sylvie was as startled as if she’d been slapped. “Lizzie!”

“I thought it would be a nice surprise.” Her daughter’s words came out in a breathless tumble. “I miss him, and you do too.”

“How do you know what I’m feeling?” Sylvie asked sharply.
Especially
, she thought,
since I barely know myself?

Lizzie was scowling at her. “How can you not miss him? You guys were married so long, you’re like each other’s …” Her voice trailed off. “I mean, how can you even imagine the holidays without him?”

Sylvie answered coolly, “I believe I was doing just fine.”

Lizzie’s face reddened, and her chin quivered. “Well, I miss him,” she said.

So invite him to your house
, Sylvie thought—an uncharacteristically uncharitable thought, and one she would never give voice to.

“He’s falling apart,” Lizzie continued. “And I thought that other guy was just an old friend.”

Sylvie cleared her plate and held her tongue. From what she’d seen in the papers, Richard hadn’t fallen apart … his career had, in fact, been enjoying a small renaissance. He’d championed a House bill—something to do with taxes on soft drinks—that had been written up favorably in the
Times
piece. He’d given a terse “no comment” when the reporter had asked about his marriage. Joelle Stabinow, contacted at her law office in Washington, had said merely that Senator Woodruff was “a fine man and a dear friend.” Richard had continued calling Sylvie, too, every morning and every night, but she hadn’t talked to him once. She tamped down her anger at Lizzie’s presumptuousness and tried to consider the practicalities. How would she handle Richard in her kitchen, in her house? Would he want to stay over? Would he expect to sleep in her bed?

“Dad’s an adult,” said Diana, pulling off her sweatshirt and tying it around her waist. “He can handle his business.”

“No, he can’t, Diana!” Lizzie said. “You should have seen him. The house was a mess, and he sat on his laptop twice while I was there. He can barely open his in-box.”

“Learned helplessness,” said Selma, without looking up from the bridge column. “That’s all that is. You get enough women to take care of you—do your laundry, manage your campaigns, wait for your eggs …”

“Mother,” Sylvie murmured.

“… then why should you bother learning how to do things for yourself? He’s falling apart like a fox, is what I think.”

“I told him to bring dessert,” Lizzie said.

“Tim’s bringing dessert,” Sylvie said, wringing her hands.

“Milo and I don’t eat sugar,” said Diana, standing up to clear her juice glass. Selma cackled.

“Are you sorry we didn’t do Thanksgiving at my place?” she asked her daughter, and Sylvie, standing at the sink, had no answer.

By six o’clock the turkey, which she’d filled with a sage-and-sausage stuffing and had been basting since the morning, had turned a lovely golden-brown. The sugar-free cranberry-orange chutney that Diana had contributed glowed like rubies in an antique cut-glass dish. Lizzie’s breads and rolls were cooling on the counter, next to the casserole of sweet potatoes with a puffy marshmallow crown. Selma stayed out of the kitchen, but set out a gorgeous array of cheeses and spreads and crackers on the sideboard in the dining room, along with the bottles of wine she’d brought up from New York. Sylvie had just put the metal mixing bowl and the beaters into the freezer to chill for the whipped cream she’d serve with the pies when the doorbell rang. Tim was standing on the porch, beneath a sky already deepening toward twilight, smiling at her shyly, in khaki pants and a green wool sweater with two bakery boxes in his arms.