Lady in Waiting: A Novel (13 page)

As I sat in the late morning sunshine, I silently practiced the responses
Dr. Kirtland encouraged me to use if my parents asked questions about Brad that I didn’t feel ready to answer. It hadn’t taken long in that first counseling session for the conversation to swing to my parents. Dr. Kirtland said sometimes that’s where the beginning of the journey is.

I had said, “But I don’t want to talk about my parents. This is not my parents’ problem, it’s mine.”

To which he said, “Yes, but we’re not talking about ownership of a problem right now. We’re not even talking about the problem itself. The problem of you not being able to sleep is actually not what we’re dealing with right now. It’s not even your husband’s leaving you.”

“Well, what is it then?”

“We’re going to focus on you. Not your marriage. Not your parents. We’re going to focus on how you see you.”

“But you just said sometimes the journey starts with the parents.”

“I think for you, it might. I think we’re going to need to understand to what extent you rely on your parents for part of your validation. When we’ve figured that out, we’ll spend some time figuring out why you’ve relied on your marriage for the rest of it.”

Validation. The word didn’t sit well with me. I immediately thought of a parking stub. I wanted to tell him I didn’t like that word, but that just sounded childish in my head.

Our session had been nearly over at that point anyway, and Dr. Kirtland had quickly moved on to coach me on how to handle my parents’ questions. Before I left, he told me gently that I could eliminate this particular stressor in my life by just telling them the truth. Because then they would know. I mentally practiced his answers on the way home:

On the phone, the night before I left, Molly told me she thought the responses were perfect. And that I should practice saying them out loud.

“What if they ask why I haven’t gone up to New Hampshire to see Brad?” I asked her. “Or why he’s only been down once to see me?”

“That’s when you politely tell them that really isn’t any of their business.”

“I could never say something like that, and you know it.”

“Well, Janie, that’s why they keep intruding on your private life. You let them.”

It had hurt a little, hearing that from her, even though I knew after just an hour with Dr. Kirtland it was partly true.

“Do you think I rely on my parents for validation?” I asked.

She’d laughed, but it was light and quick. She hadn’t been laughing at me. “Did Jonah tell you that?”

“Dr. Kirtland thinks I find my validation in my parents and in my marriage. And since both of those relationships are kind of messed up right now, I’m messed up. It’s why I can’t sleep.”

“Did he say that’s why you can’t sleep?”

I ignored her. “I just don’t like that word. Validation. It sounds so … impersonal.”

“So call it something else. Affirmation or self-worth. Whatever. Call it whatever you want.”

The ease with which these other words fell from her lips had silenced me for a moment. She had known exactly what Dr. Kirtland was talking about. And she agreed with him. A tremor of frustration rippled through me as I formulated a response.

“Jane?”

“Hey. I happen to appreciate hearing what other people think. I always have. I think it’s good to listen to the advice of other people before you make an important decision.” My voice sounded a little shaky, as if I almost didn’t believe my own words.

She had paused just for a moment. “Jane, I really don’t think Dr. Kirtland was talking about you feeling compelled to get advice from other people before you make important decisions.”

“Yes, he was.”

“I think he was probably talking about you feeling compelled to let other people
make
the important decisions.”

“What are you talking about?” The words flew out of my mouth. “How do you know that’s what he meant?”

One of her daughters had needed her at that moment, and we had to cut our conversation short. She told me to call her on Sunday when I got home from Long Island. We said good-bye on a weird note, disconnected.

As I waited for my father, it occurred to me that just before we hung up, she’d quickly apologized if those words had hurt me. But she hadn’t apologized for saying them.

I was happy to see that my sister was in the car with my dad when his relatively new Volvo pulled into the train station. Dad wouldn’t begin any interviews on the true nature of Brad’s whereabouts with Leslie in the car. At least my parents were discreet when they butted into my private life.
I tossed my empty coffee cup into the trash as he and Leslie got out of the car and walked toward me. Dad, wearing the striped short-sleeved shirt I gave him for Father’s Day last year, gave me his customary peck on the cheek. The steel gray in the fabric of his shirt matched his slicked, silver hair. He smelled of Lava soap, as always. Leslie had on a bright pink, fitted T-shirt and stonewashed jeans. Hoop earrings the size of tea saucers hung from her ears. Her short-cropped hair was streaked with shades of bronze, copper, and gold.

We embraced and I wished her a happy birthday.

“This is all you’ve got?” My dad had my overnight bag in his hands and was looking about my feet for, I assume, a suitcase.

“I’m just staying overnight, Dad.” I laughed.

“Your mother said you were staying Sunday night too.”

I never told my mother any such thing. “Um. No, I need to get back to Manhattan tomorrow.”

“She’s a working girl now, Dad. Remember?” Leslie said as we began to make our way to Dad’s car. “The antique shop?”

Dad ignored her sarcasm. “Your mother said you hired a new girl. She said you could stay until Monday.”

“Well, yes, I’ve hired someone, but she’s only part-time, Dad. And I never said I was staying Sunday night too.”

We arrived at the car. As I put out my hand to open the passenger door, Leslie pointed to the ring on my pinkie. Sunbeams were stroking the gems.

“Hey. Is that a new ring?”

“Actually, it’s a rather old ring. I just got it in a shipment from Emma this past week. I want to take it to David Longmont and see if he can appraise it for me.” As my dad tossed my overnight bag into the trunk, I leaned toward my sister.

“It has my first name engraved inside,” I said softly.

Her eyes were wide as Dad slammed the trunk shut and announced that David Longmont was retired.

I called over my shoulder. “I hear he still hangs out there now that his son has taken over the business.”

“Can I see it?” Leslie said as we both slid into the car.

I took off the ring and handed it over the seat to Leslie. She immediately held it up to the window, squinting to read the inscription.

My dad got inside the car, and his brow furrowed as he watched Leslie. “What’s she doing?”

“The ring has an inscription,” I answered.

“Vul … vil …,” Leslie attempted as she stared at the ring’s underside. “What
is
that? I can barely read it.”

“
Vulnerasti cor meum, soror mea, sponsa
. It’s Latin. It means ‘You have captured my heart, my sister, my bride.’”

“Holy cow,” Leslie breathed. “How old is this thing?”

“I found it hidden inside the lining of a three-hundred-year-old prayer book, so—”

“What’s three hundred years old?” My dad had started the car and shifted into reverse to back out of his parking space.

“Wow …,” Leslie murmured. She was reading my name.

Jane.

I turned to face my dad. “The ring might be.”

“And you’re walking around with it? You’re
wearing
it?”

I reached over the seat, and Leslie handed the ring back to me. “If it has survived the last three hundred years stuck in a book in someone’s barn, I think it will survive a trip to Long Island.”

“David Longmont is going to flip!” Leslie exclaimed. “Especially when he sees your name in it.”

“Your name’s in what?” Dad said, easing his way out of the parking lot.

“The name ‘Jane’ is inscribed inside too,” I replied.

“How much did you pay for it?” Dad turned onto the main avenue out of the station.

“How much did you pay for this car?” Leslie quipped.

“I’m just saying a ring that old must’ve cost a fair sum, that’s all. You might want to be careful how you handle it.” He sounded miffed.

“If it makes you feel better, I have a case for it, Dad. I am wearing it because I like knowing where it is.”

“I don’t need to feel better. You just need—”

But Leslie interrupted him. “I’ll take you down to David’s shop today, Jane. Todd wants to play baseball this afternoon with some old high school friends, and he’s taking Bryce and Paige with him. I don’t want to go for the whole thing. We can go shopping and then to the jewelry store and then we can get ice cream and then maybe catch the last inning.”

“Your mother’s going to be too busy to do all that,” Dad said, concern in every word. “She has to get everything ready for the party tonight.”

Behind him, Leslie crossed her eyes. “We won’t pull her away from the preparations.”

Before Dad could say anything else, Leslie began to describe to me how her friends at work celebrated her fortieth the night before in Atlantic City and how she didn’t get home until three in the morning. She described the evening as well as the afternoon leading up to it in vivid detail, allowing me to relax as we made our way into the neighborhood where she and I grew up.

The streets were peaceful. Men in plaid shorts were mowing their lawns, women in straw hats were putting down impatiens and alyssum in their flower beds, and children were shooting hoops in their driveways. The colors of April—always shining and vibrant after a monochromatic winter—were alive at every glance, down every side street.

I had always pictured my life looking something like this, living in a
house like my parents’ with its gray dormer windows trimmed in white, wide cements steps to the painted wood porch, on a street named after a tree, in a cozy suburb that could be anywhere.

I’d imagined I’d have daughters and sons, at least one or two of each, and that we’d take long family vacations in the summer and play board games on stormy nights, and that we’d have a million inside jokes that were funny only to us. I’d pictured big family dinners, fun secrets between my daughters, laughter and wrestling among my sons, and a kinship with my husband that my friends would marvel at, and that our house would be the one all the teenagers would flock to.

But we’d spent our only child’s teenage years in a Manhattan town house, watching old James Bond movies on rainy nights, and eating out more than we ate in. When we lived in Connecticut, during the years I wished for another child and was kept wishing despite many years of trying, our home had been a stylish rambler in a new Stanford subdivision, one of several models that repeated itself every fourth house. Connor was usually ready for bed by the time Brad finally got home from work. He and I ate dinner at eight or eight-thirty, sometimes in front of the television where Brad often fell asleep with his fork in his hand.

Free weekends were spent canoeing or fishing, neither of which I enjoyed. I had been happy to let Connor and Brad take off at dawn on weekend mornings to seek out the water, leaving me to scout out antique stores with friends. At the time it seemed like we were both getting to do what we wanted. From the perspective of the front seat of my father’s Volvo, it didn’t seem that way now.

As we closed the distance to my childhood home, I was keenly aware that my life had turned out differently than what I’d imagined when these streets were my streets, when nothing had been decided yet, when I was young and the world seemed spacious and inviting.

My parents’ house came into view as Leslie rambled on, and my
nostalgic thoughts were yanked away. My mother was on the porch watering her hanging baskets. She turned toward us as if surprised we were already home, when in actuality, I saw her rise from the swing as we made the turn onto the street—a blur of blue sweat suit and silver gray hair—and reach for the watering can at her feet.