“I’m not sure I can put it into words,” he said, taking a deep breath. “It was like watching a movie, only I was the one who was in it. I had to keep reminding myself that it was real. I left two messages on her answering machine and called myself Nathan, which was truly weird. When I talked to her on the phone the next morning, she invited me to come to her house. I didn’t know what to call her. It’s kind of hard to say ‘Mom’ to someone you just met. Anyway, she’s real nice. She works as a librarian in an elementary school and loves her job. She also teaches a night class for adults on reading aloud to children. We didn’t talk about what happened between you and her, Dad. She said it would just lead to a lot of ugliness back and forth and make everyone miserable.” I gave Sara a quick glance as if to say,
I
told
you
so
. Lucy would never want all the sordid details to be revealed. “I was pretty cautious with her at first. I said I was called Elliot now, but I didn’t tell her our last name or where I went to school or anything. She could see I didn’t trust her, so she came right out and said she wasn’t going to turn you in to the police, Dad. She made me a promise.”
“Well, that’s a big relief,” Sara said.
“Great,” I said. “Did you get that in writing?” Another joke that fell flat.
He told us the two of them went out shopping for groceries and she cooked Hungarian goulash for dinner. I wondered if she was still in touch with Sandor. Nearly everything Elliot said felt like it carried a hidden message from Lucy to me. She had given him a stash of photographs from our life together, which Sara was curious to see. The only photo I had of them as little children was the one I’d had in my wallet when we left Boston. Lucy also included a recent photograph of herself, kneeling on the grass next to an ugly brown dog.
Sara said, “God, she’s so beautiful.”
“No argument there,” I said. Her hair was streaked with gray, her face a bit drawn and angular, but her smile was radiant.
Elliot said, “The dog’s name was Frodo. He died a few months ago. She wants me to go to the animal shelter with her and help pick out a new pup.”
I tried not to react. Lucy was already making plans for when he came back. I could see her insinuating herself into his life. Inviting him for dinner all the time, going to see The Spendthrifts play. How long would it be before he moved into her house? Sara started asking him questions about Lucy. As I shifted in my chair, a muscle spasm gripped my lower back and I let out a groan.
“I’m sorry, El.” I stood up, wincing. “I tore the deck off the house today, and my back is seizing up on me.”
Sara said, “Do you want me to get you a heat pack?”
“No, no, I’ll be fine. I just need to go lie down.”
I gimped off to my bedroom and fell asleep in my clothes.
***
I woke up about one-thirty and couldn’t get back to sleep. It wasn’t the muscle spasms in my back so much as the turmoil in my head. On my way to the kitchen, I noticed light coming through the crack under Sara’s door. I paused in the hall for a moment, listening, wondering if she and Elliot were still up talking. In the kitchen I poured a glass of milk, then peeled back the tin foil and started eating the leftover apple cobbler out of the baking pan.
“Hey, Dad,” Sara said, coming into the kitchen.
“Hey, honey. Can’t sleep?”
She shook her head.
“Is it Lucy or Ajit?”
“Her. I called Ajit and told him everything. I was afraid he’d think we were a bunch of lunatics, but he was great about it.” She ate a few crumbs from the pan with her fingers. “Lucy gave El a present to bring home for me. Can I show you?”
“Sure.”
Sara went to her room and came back with a tattered copy of
Eloise
.
“It was almost like I knew what it was before I opened it,” she said. “I remembered how much we liked reading it together. This letter was tucked inside.” She took out a small piece of pale blue stationery and read aloud. “Dear Sarah. Merry Christmas. It’s three o’clock in the morning, and I have spent the last two hours trying to write this letter. Elliot told me why you didn’t want him to come see me. I can understand why you feel the way you do. I know how much you love your father and want to protect him. Please believe me when I say that I will not contact the authorities or try to settle any score with him. Nothing can be gained for any of us by deconstructing the past. All I want is to see you again. But that isn’t something I can control. You are a grown-up now, and I don’t want to intrude on your life unless you want me to be a part of it. My hope is that you will find it in your heart to reach out to me and let me earn your trust. With all my love, Mom.” Sara turned over the page and kept reading. “Yikes! Every time I try to write this letter, it gets worse. I’m not sure why it’s so hard to sound like me. I’ve actually written to you and your brother in a journal hundreds of times since you’ve been gone. Maybe one of those entries will work better. All I really want to say is that I have never stopped loving you or missing you, and tonight I miss you more than ever.”
It took me a second to reply. I wasn’t sure what Sara expected. “Powerful stuff,” I said.
“Yeah.” She took a folded sheet of paper from the back of the book and handed it to me. I sat down at the kitchen table to read, my life unraveling in photocopies from Boston. I recognized Lucy’s cramped handwriting.
7-21-95 (12 years, 1 month & 7 days gone) Sarah, I’m sorry I missed your birthday yesterday. It wasn’t that I forgot. I was thinking about you all day, but I was sightseeing and museum-hopping and I kept putting it off, waiting for the right time to sit down and try to say something meaningful, which is the kind of thing that never works out the way you plan—not for me, anyway. I’m in France, traveling with my new beau, William Hufnagel. Have you ever been to France? I was your age the first time I came. I visited a girl who had been an exchange student in our high school. She lived in Saint-Malo on the chilly coast of Brittany. William and I are on the other side of the country, exploring the Riviera. This morning we drove up into the hills above Nice to see the Matisse Chapel in Vence. I’d read about the chapel in guidebooks but had never seen it before. It was the last big art project he did before he died and his only piece of architecture. The place is breathtaking. I’m not a religious person, but when you sit inside the chapel, bathed in the blue and green and yellow light, you know God must have inspired Matisse to do it, one last surge of creativity before the angels whisked him up to Heaven. (If Matisse didn’t make it, I don’t want to go.) At the moment I’m in the garden outside the chapel while William goes off to get some bread and wine and cheese for our lunch. It’s strange, I almost never go into a church back in Boston, but when I’m in France, I can’t get enough of them. Not so much the big cathedrals, though you’d have to be a cold fish not to be awed by Chartres or Notre Dame. I prefer the churches in the villages—some sturdy little Romanesque église with faded frescoes above the altar and the names of the dead soldiers from the Great War on a plaque on the wall, five or six brothers from the same family, sorrow beyond human understanding. I would love to bring you here to Matisse’s chapel someday. We could sit quietly in the sanctuary and breathe in the light and think about that old man in his wheelchair with a paint brush on a long stick and an imagination as big as the sun. It’s enough to make you believe in miracles, sugar pop, which is how I feel right now. I know I’m going to see you again.
I looked at Sara. We both had tears in our eyes.
“You know what’s really crazy?” she said. “I went to that chapel with some friends about a month ago.”
I blew out a long breath. “You have to make up your own mind, honey.”
***
Sara flew to Boston just after New Year’s to meet her mother. She said the visit went well. She seemed to want to talk about it, but I didn’t. I couldn’t prevent her and Elliot from having a relationship with Lucy, but as far as I was concerned it was “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” I never wanted to hear Lucy’s name again. But I knew that wasn’t going to be possible.
In the middle of January, shortly after the kids were back at school, Ajit’s father called me and asked if we could have lunch together. The few times I’d met him he seemed like a nice guy. He was tall and handsome like Ajit, but a little stiff. Even at soccer games he always wore a coat and tie. When he spoke, it sounded like he’d learned English from a textbook. I was concerned when he called to set up the lunch. I thought he might have concerns about Ajit and Sara’s engagement and wanted to see if I felt the same. But it was nothing of the sort. We met at a restaurant near the university where he was a professor.
“My wife and I are so happy for Sara and Ajit,” he said, smiling. “I apologize for not getting in touch with you sooner to send my good wishes.”
“Likewise. I’d like to take the two of you out to dinner together sometime.”
“Yes, thank you, that would be wonderful.” We chatted for a while. Then he said, “You know, we are very proud of Ajit for winning a fellowship to Oxford University. He will be coming home for spring vacation in March, and we were thinking about giving a party in his honor. Ajit suggested that it would be appropriate to use the occasion to celebrate his betrothal to your beautiful Sara as well. Kill two birds with one stone as they say. Ha ha.” I could tell he’d been rehearsing the lines.
“Sure, that would be great.” I had a feeling this was more Sara’s doing than Ajit’s. “Were you thinking of a dinner party?”
“Oh yes. Traditional Bengali food. It will keep my wife busy planning the menu. Some music perhaps, so the young people can dance.”
“That sounds terrific. Shall we split the cost?”
“Thank you. That is most generous of you.” He seemed relieved.
I called Sara’s cell phone on my way back to work and left a message
.
“Hey, kiddo, I just had lunch with Mr. Banerjee. I guess you already know about the party they’re planning for you and Ajit. Just tell me the date and time and I’ll be there with bells on my toes.” I was smiling to myself as I hung up.
Sara waited nearly two weeks to tell me she was inviting Lucy to the party, something I should have guessed all along. She said she hoped I didn’t mind, though she knew how much I did. I suppose I could have issued an ultimatum.
Her
or
me. I never want to be in the same room with that woman again.
But I didn’t want to back Sara into a corner.
As the day of the party approached, Sara acted as an intermediary. She said Lucy was coming to California two days early and wanted to get together with me “to clear the air.”
“That isn’t necessary,” I said. “We’re both adults. Neither one of us wants to make a scene.”
“Please, Dad. I think she’s right. You guys need to talk. Do this for me, okay?”
I was dreading it, but I felt like I had no choice. Sara arranged for us to meet at the bar in the hotel in Del Mar where Lucy was staying. I was seated in an out-of-the-way table in back when she came in. She was wearing a pair of gray slacks and a lavender blouse. She looked around and spotted me. No smile. I thought about the first time I saw her crossing the street in Copley Square. She still carried herself with that slow, catlike grace. Men still turned their heads. I stood up to greet her.
“Hello, Lucy.” I pulled out a chair.
“Hello, Matt.”
“Adam.”
She shrugged, her eyes fixed on mine. We were like two boxers at a weigh-in, sizing each other up, neither of us wanting to show any fear.
“This seems like a nice hotel,” I said. “Is your room okay?”
“Yes, fine. Wonderful view.”
“Have you ever been here before? To the San Diego area, I mean.”
“No, it’s lovely. Seems like a great place to raise children.”
It was a solid body blow. I tried not to let it show. “Yes, terrific weather. Sara can play golf year-round. Did she tell you how good she was?”
“She did.”
The waitress came over and asked for our drink orders. I said I’d have a soda water with a lime. Lucy asked for white wine.
“Well,” I said, “you look as lovely as ever.”
“Thank you. You look good yourself. Maybe we should think about getting back together.” Another hard shot to the ribs.
“Sara said you wanted to clear the air. How nasty do you want this to be?”
“I don’t know.” She paused. “One part of me wants you to die. I don’t mean that figuratively. I’ve had fantasies about murdering you myself. Another part tells me to try for forgiveness. I’m having trouble getting traction on that one.”
“Fair enough. You want to go first or should I? How far back do you want to go? How about the night you went off with Griffin and came back and told me you were pregnant with Sara?”
“Wow, that
is
far back.”
“You slept with him that night, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
“And started our marriage with a lie.”
“Which you never really believed. The lies you wanted to hear were the easiest ones to tell.”
I didn’t respond. The waitress brought our drinks.
She said, “I was a terrible wife, Matt. I’m sorry. You deserved better. But I wasn’t a terrible mother.”
I curled one corner of my mouth. “Right.”
“No, I’ll never accept your judgment of me on that.”
“Would you like me to start enumerating your failings?” I tapped my finger hard on the table. “Isn’t that why you told the kids you don’t want to
deconstruct
the
past
? Because you don’t want them to know what a fuck-up you were?”
Her eyes never left mine. “Oh, you don’t have to do any enumerating for me. I’ve gone over my failings more times than you ever will. I’ve bored therapists, written about them in my journal, had the most egregious ones etched in stone so I could beat my head against them. You can’t tell me anything bad about me I don’t already know.” She took a sip of wine. “I’m sure you believe that what you did was right, Matt. That no jury would convict you after hearing what a horrible mother I was. You think
I’m
the criminal, not you. Okay, fine. Guilty. I won’t try to defend myself. So, tell me, what should my penalty be?”