Illusions of Love (26 page)

“No,” she insisted, “I want my son brought to me for all his bottles, day or night.”

Dr. Friedman looked at her and laughed.

“You’re incorrigible. Now, Sylvia, let me examine you.”

He wasn’t at all pleased when he saw the toll the long labour had taken on her uterus. It had not tightened as fast as he had hoped.

When he was done he pulled out a chair and sat down.

“Sylvia, I have some instructions which must be carried out to the letter. You know, my dear, you can be very stubborn.” He smiled, shaking his head.

“I want you to have very few visitors during the next week. And I want you to put on some weight … ” I promise,” she said and smiled back.

“Fine. Now get some rest and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Soon after, Martin came in and kissed her softly on the lips. She drew him closer.

“Motherhood has not transformed me into a saint. You can do better than that.”

“I can do much better than that … He kissed her again a real kiss this time, filled with the love he felt for his wife and sat down.

“How are you feeling this morning?” she asked, seeing that he obviously hadn’t slept well.

“Fathers always survive.”

She smiled, “Martin, isn’t he beautiful?”

“Like his mother.”

“You mean I look like a little red lobster?”

Martin laughed. Then his face became serious.

“Look, darling,” he said.

“I’ve spoken to Dr. Friedman. I really want you to rest.”

She reached out and took his hand.

“Oh, Martin, I’m so full of love, how can I feel tired? You’ve given me so much.”

“No, darling, it’s the other way around. You’ve given me a son, our son. Now rest.”

“Will you be back soon? Please?”

“If you promise to eat, and nap, and not talk too much. Otherwise it’s solitary confinement.”

For the next few days even her mother and father visited only briefly.

Bess just stuck her head in from time to time announcing grandly, “I’m going to see my grandson, Julian Roth the Second.” It was just a year since her husband had died, and Bess found it especially significant that the baby was born at this time.

At last the day came for Sylvia to go home. Martin stayed home from work and, when Sylvia was comfortably settled in their bedroom, he spent the rest of the afternoon

watching his son. He was enchanted by the little face that looked so much like both himself and his father.

At dinner that night Bess’s pleasure at having her grandson home was so great that Martin silently congratulated Sylvia once again for having persuaded him to live in Woodside rather than buying a house of their own.

As the months passed, Julian grew into a chubby, happy baby. Except for a little colic and some hard times with his first teeth, he was an easygoing, cheerful soul. He smiled at Sylvia, Bess, his nurse, even strangers, but his favourite person in his small universe was Martin.

His mother and grandmother and nurse were there all day. Martin’s company was special.

On Sunday mornings, Martin would get up early and bring Julian into the big four-poster to play. The proud father would hold his baby boy up in the air while little Julian kicked and laughed. Then he would sit him up and pretend to carry on a real conversation. Julian would gurgle and try to imitate his father’s sounds.

Sylvia never tired of watching them together. She was still crazy in love with her husband and thought that his prematurely greying hair had made him handsomer than ever. And it seemed as if Martin loved her more than ever, too. The smallest holiday became an excuse for indulgence as he brought her a new ring, a bracelet, earrings. When she protested, Martin just said that the mother of his son deserved the best.

On Julian’s first birthday, Sylvia had a small party for the family in the garden. Julian sat in his highchair, pounding on the attached tray with his spoon while his two adoring grandmothers vied for his attention. At one point Bess pulled him up to give him an exuberant hug, but when the baby caught sight of Martin at the head of the table he stretched out his arms and screamed for his father.

“If ever there was a daddy’s boy, he is,” laughed Bess, placing the baby in Martin’s arms.

Sylvia observed the scene smiling. Then she stood up and raised her hands to get everyone’s attention.

“I have an announcement to make,” she said, turning to her husband and son.

“I think you, dear Julian, are going to have a little competition in the fall.” Martin looked at Sylvia for a long moment, then returned Julian to Bess and walked over to his wife.

“Darling, how wonderful.” He looked around the flower-filled garden, saw his proud relatives, heard Julian’s happy laughter. His heart filled to overflowing and he vowed he would never let anything happen to hurt his family or endanger their happiness.

On December the twenty-sixth, Sylvia delivered a baby girl, weighing just under seven pounds. After much persuading, she had agreed to a caesarean, so the baby’s time of arrival was known well in advance.

She was spared the long ordeal of labour, but she also missed the excitement of hearing her daughter’s first cry. Sylvia was back in her room before she regained consciousness, and she didn’t see Martin until the next day. He seemed delighted to have a girl and handed out cigars to all the doctors. When Sylvia suggested naming the child after his favourite grandmother, Amanda Roth, he seemed as pleased as he had when she’d named Julian after his father.

Martin was pleased and as the babies grew he knew he had little cause to complain about the pattern his life had taken. The brokerage prospered, the family was healthy, and Sylvia seemed to have accepted the role of suburban mother. If sometimes Martin felt life proceeded on too even a keel, he kept such thoughts to himself. Only occasionally did he allow himself to question his life, and that

was when he felt the children were growing away from him.

Between the nurse, Sylvia and the maids, Martin felt as if he were losing the special closeness he’d enjoyed with Julian. He began working longer hours the year Amy was born and sometimes days passed when he wouldn’t see his daughter. He begged Sylvia to keep the children up later, but she didn’t like to upset their routine.

Goddammit, they’re my children, Martin sometimes felt like saying, but he didn’t, although sometimes sitting at the table with Bess and Sylvia he felt a surge of restlessness. Was it less than two years since Julian’s first birthday, when Martin had felt he was the luckiest man in the world? Now sometimes he envied Sylvia’s apparent contentment, envied and resented it at the same time.

One night after the children were in bed, Martin and Sylvia settled into their favourite chairs in the library. Martin had taken out the stock market report and barely heard Sylvia’s rundown of the day’s activities until she said, “If you could have seen how excited Julian was.”

Martin poised his index finger on the quotation on US Steel and looked up with sudden interest.

“Sorry, I’m afraid I missed that. Who did you say was excited?”

“Julian.”

“Oh? About what?”

“Going to nursery school. The one your cousin Jane is sending Mark and Deborah to. Of course they are in kindergarten but Julian will be in the same group as Joel and Nicole and As though he had been struck, Martin shouted, ” You are sending Julian to school? For God’s sakes, he is only three. “

Sylvia was shocked by his outburst. Suppressing her own anger, she said quietly, “Jane sent the twins when they were only two.”

“I don’t give a damn what my cousin Jane did, she can do anything she damn well pleases, but I don’t believe in regimenting children that

young. Let them grow up, for God’s sake.”

“But you don’t understand Martin. I feel Julian needs to play with other children. In fact, the other day when Jane stopped in after school, Julian asked Mark if he wouldn’t take him.”

“Why in the hell didn’t you discuss this with me before?”

“Well, darling, that’s what I’m doing now.”

Well, she was, but Martin sensed the decision had been made. Knowing he was being unfair, he said crossly, “All right, Sylvia, but the answer is no. Julian is entirely too young to be sent away to school.”

Sylvia bit her lower lip, trying not to smile. She knew Martin was having a hard time realizing that Julian was no longer a baby. She expected this was partly because he had never become as close to Amy.

Trying to keep her patience, Sylvia said, “He is not exactly being sent away, Martin. He will be in school from nine to eleven-thirty. It will be good for him. He’ll grow up being a very lonely little boy if he is only surrounded by adults.”

Martin felt as if he’d been pushed into a corner. In her sweet, compassionate way, Sylvia sounded as if the sacrifice were entirely for Julian’s sake. Martin didn’t believe it. He felt that Sylvia followed whatever his cousin Jane suggested. As the mother of four, Jane’s advice was sacrosanct and for all he knew maybe she was right.

But the thought of Julian going off to school filled Martin with a nameless sadness. For the first time he wished they lived in San Francisco so he could walk Julian to school in the morning before going to the office. Well, there was no use arguing. He would look like a heel if he tried to stop her, and he was damn well sure his mother’s allegiance would be with Sylvia. His mother always sided with her.

“Well, where in the hell is this school?” he asked sullenly and Sylvia knew that was his way of giving his consent.

Martin insisted on driving Julian on the first day, but afterwards he was sorry he had gone. Something very precious died in Martin when Julian let go of his hand and

ran off to play with the other kids. He didn’t even look up when Martin pecked him on the cheek and said goodbye. If Martin had ever been asked to pick a time when the first blush of happiness left his marriage, he would have siad the moment he left Julian at school. But he knew that was unfair. It wasn’t Sylvia’s fault the boy was growing up.

Over the next year Martin frequently went to work late, dropping Julian off first, and he often called home at twelve to make sure the boy had returned safely. He saved all of Julian’s crayoned pictures and had them matted and framed as if they were Picassos. He even hung some in his office and would point them out to visitors saying, “By God, the boy is really good, for a three-year-old.”

No one was surprised that Martin’s favourite was a scribbled figure captioned “Daddy.”

One night Julian sat on Martin’s knee, describing a new picture, showing off all the brilliance Martin insisted the boy possessed.

“Look, Daddy, the sky is blue and the tree is green, the moon is yellow and the house is white. And look, there’s a daddy walking up the path with his big boy,” and he pointed to two figures who were almost the same size.

“Do you like it, Daddy?”

“I love it, Julian, but don’t you keep wishing to grow up. Stay a little boy just a while longer for my sake. Okay, Julian?”

“Okay, Daddy.”

Although Julian said he was willing, time was not. Somehow, before Martin knew it, Julian turned six and one morning he and Sylvia went to enrol the boy in the Menio School, which was a day school through ninth grade. Instead of remembering his own happy days there, Martin felt bereft.

Later that afternoon he sat in his office and couldn’t concentrate on anything. He stared out the window at the bridge, but even that elegant span of metal failed to raise his spirits. His life felt so empty. The children seemed to have less time for him. Both were busy

with their own playmates, and even Sylvia suddenly seemed involved with a bunch of silly charities. He felt as if he were living on the edge of everyone else’s lives, even his mother’s. Hell, no one was paying him much attention. He didn’t want to feel sorry for himself, but he did.

Yet Martin didn’t complain, which in many ways was unfair to Sylvia.

As far as she could see their marriage was as happy as ever. They never fought. They rarely argued. But Sylvia was aware that Martin was less than content. Of course she did not have much time to dwell on the problem. She had been raised to believe that children were the most important thing in marriage and, after all, Martin said he was happy.

Sylvia pushed the vague concern aside and continued to fill her days taking the children to the orthodontist, to dancing lessons, tennis lessons, horseback lessons, swimming lessons. She was elected to the school board to help supervise the curriculum and worked hard getting a local Congressman who favoured safe streets and better schools elected. All this would help her children’s future.

She didn’t neglect Martin, for no matter what she did during the day, she was always home by five to shower and dress for his homecoming.

Their friends considered them the ideal couple. They went to the opera, the theatre and charity balls. They supported several San Francisco galleries and were active members of the country club. If Martin was bored by the conversation at the golf course or by the inevitable game of gin after dinner at the club, he showed his feelings only by an occasional prolonged silence.

He would sometimes watch Sylvia’s placid acceptance of her own routine with envy. She didn’t seem to mind the constant driving. She said that she’d resented being consigned to the family chauffeur when she was a girl and was determined her children would not be similarly neglected.

She was convinced that that was one of the reasons she did not feel close to her own mother. No, she told Martin when he questioned the hours she spent in the car, she was happy

to drive. It gave her a chance to talk with the kids.

“Don’t you get bored?” Martin once asked her.

“No.” She enjoyed her days. She was content being the loving mother, devoted wife, obedient daughter-in-law. She planned their life carefully. That’s why it was so perfect. They were the lucky couple, weren’t they? Ask anyone.

Anyone, that is, except Martin Roth. He was jealous of Sylvia’s tranquillity, and decent enough to be angry with himself for begrudging her her enjoyment of the small things which filled her life.