It was the Saturday night after the memorial, the valet service and waiters were gone, the rentals had been picked up, and the kitchen was almost back to normal. Some generous soul had thought to bring us a stuffed and roasted turkey, which was a wonderful diversion from all the ham. Millie and I made gravy and mashed potatoes, so we had hot turkey sandwiches for everyone. Comfort food. Chloe was out-of-her-mind thrilled with her new puppy, who she promptly named Missy. Eric and all his cousins played with Missy until it was time for supper. Seeing Eric then, playing like a kid? It was hard to envision him cavorting with Erica the Pedophile.
“Too bad Matthew couldn’t stay, Caroline. He’s really a helluva guy. I told him so, too,” Trip said. “He sure made Chloe happy.”
“Yeah, he’s amazing. He had to go to restore law and order out at a social club. I always worry when he has to answer a call like that.”
Owen said, “Well, from what I’ve seen of him, I think he can take care of himself just fine.”
Owen was leaving in the morning to fly back to Chicago.
“I hope so and, Owen?” I said, thinking about how much he really did remind me of Rusty. “We have all really enjoyed the chance to know you a little better. I hope you’ll come back and see us, ’eah?”
“Terrible way to get to know anybody but I’ll do that. Promise.”
“Yep. I’ll take you fishing, on the Edisto. Make a Lowcountry boy out of you,” Trip said.
“That sounds like a deal,” Owen said. “This is so strange, but I feel like I’ve known you guys all my life.”
“That’s what happens when the chemistry is just right,” I said, hoping Trip wouldn’t tell him how many chemistry experiments I had conducted, i.e., pheromone romps! But all silly jokes aside, I believed then that a visit from Owen might make us all miss Rusty a little less. I really did.
We shared a casual kitchen supper and then Trip, Owen, and the girls got themselves together to go back to their house. Chloe stood by the door with Missy curled up in a ball in her arms.
“I love her, Aunt Caroline.”
I looked down at Chloe and thought, You know what? She’s not a
bad
little girl, she’s just really ugly. Maybe we can fix some of it and maybe she’ll grow out of some of it, and in the meanwhile she’s got a new puppy to love. Not so terrible.
“That’s good, sweetheart. You take very good care of her, okay?”
“Oh, I will!”
I knew she would. I planted a kiss on her cheek and she hugged me with her free arm.
They were so tired. We were
all
so tired. Eric had disappeared upstairs to his room, probably to call his babysitter. Even Millie made an early departure. I had just closed the door behind them all and turned on the dishwasher. Richard was still sitting at the kitchen table and it was obvious to me he was hanging around to unburden himself of some serious something.
“Can I get you anything, Richard?” I spoke with that tone of voice that really meant
last call at the bar
. My intention was to escape to my room and sleep for ten years or so.
“No, thank you.” He swirled the scotch and ice around in his tumbler. “I want to talk to you, Caroline. Can you sit with me for a minute?”
“Of course,” I said.
There was no apparent reason I should say no at that moment, so I sat. I may have thought he was a skank and I may have praised heaven a thousand times in the last twenty-four hours that I divorced him, but those were not good enough reasons to be inhospitable. He was, after all was said and done, Eric’s father.
“Would you like a glass of wine, my dear?”
I loved the way he offered me a glass of wine in my own house.
“No, thanks. I’m actually going to turn in, in a few minutes. It’s been a long, terrible week and I’ve really had it.”
I rested my chin on the heel of my hand and my elbow on the table, giving him my full attention. Let’s get this over with, I thought.
“I’m sure. Well, I wanted to say some things to you and you don’t need to answer me now. Just muse on them and we can talk next week or whenever you want to. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking . . .”
“Maybe I’ll have that glass of wine anyway,” I said. He started to get up and I said, “No, no! I’ll get it. You talk, I’ll pour.” I got up and went to the cabinet for a goblet.
“There’s a sauvignon blanc on the door of the fridge,” he said. “It’s open.”
“Great.” I helped myself and took my seat once again. Had he inventoried every last drop of alcohol in the house? “So what’s going on, Richard?”
“Well, a number of things. At long last, Lois and I are completely finished with each other. We broke up after Harry was expelled from MIT for plagiarism.”
“Oh, Richard! I’m sorry.” I tried to sound sincere. It was a struggle.
“And then Lois married Herb. Herb the dentist from the Five Towns on Long Island.”
“Good grief. I wouldn’t name a dog Herb.”
“Me either. Silly name.”
So, he didn’t remember he had already told Trip all of this or maybe he thought Trip had not told me? Either he was really that snockered or he was so arrogant he didn’t think my only brother would share that kind of newsy gossip with me? The former was pitiful, because it seemed Trip and I both married people who drank way too much. And the latter was pathetic proof that Richard had scant understanding of the love and trust a brother and a sister could share. And he was a psychiatrist. He took money from people to help them solve their personal issues. How ironic is that?
“Well, I’m sorry for your trouble, Richard.”
“That’s not all . . .”
I waited for him to tell me about Harry’s drug problems and about him living on the streets, and he did. After I heard way more about Harry than I wanted to know, he got up, picked up the wine bottle, and refilled my glass.
“That’s just awful, Richard. I know you had such high hopes for him.”
“Yes. Yes, I did.”
“Look. Life is long. Sometimes, anyway.” I was thinking of Rusty then, who was robbed of decades. “He may come around. He’s a smart boy.”
“Not so smart actually. No common sense. And not a grain of kindness in him either.”
I began reliving the past, remembering what a little son of a bitch—an accurate description of his mother’s personality and of Harry’s demeanor—he had been to Eric when they were just little boys. He was heinous to Eric, and Richard always took Harry’s side.
“Yeah, he was a tough nut.”
“So, you don’t hate me, then?”
“Heavens no! Why would I hate you?”
“Because I always held Harry in such high esteem over Eric.”
“Well, Richard, there’s the difference between us. I knew you were just plain wrong. I always focused on Eric’s character and potential, not his ability to mainstream in some stupid private school where the faculty is so underpaid and ridiculous they wouldn’t recognize a gifted child if he bit them square in the face. And Harry? Even when he was six years old, I wouldn’t have left Harry with a small animal, a small child, or a pack of matches for more than five minutes.”
“In retrospect, that was probably a wise call. I bet on the wrong horse and lost.”
“It would appear so. At least for right now. But you never had to make the bet, Richard.”
“You’re right. And that’s the thing, isn’t it? I never had to make the bet at all. I should have loved them equally. And intellectually I did, but for some reason I could never show it.”
“Probably because
emotionally
some men like to take competition to dangerous levels. That edgy thing you were always after, even with Lois. Whether it was sex or anything else. Do you know how often I watched you place the value of a win over everything? Between your sons, Richard! You made them compete for your affection. It was so hateful.”
“So you do hate me.”
“Not at all. I feel a little sorry for you. You can never capture what you could have had with Eric and I don’t think you can ever repair the damage done by all the rejection. I wish you could but I don’t know how you could.”
“Dear God, Caroline, why don’t you just stab me to death?”
“Look, Richard, I don’t want to hurt you, but where were you during the past decade? Am I just supposed to overlook all the heartbreak you caused our son? The silence on his birthdays? The visits that never materialized? All the broken promises? I’m just stating the facts, Richard. I mean, I still can’t figure out why you’re here now.”
“Caroline. Why am I here, why am I here? I am here, Caroline, because you were right and I was so desperately wrong, and because I am so, so dreadfully sorry for everything. I mean everything. And I thought this might be a chance to patch things up. You know, give it another go. Because, Caroline, you have something I’d give my last dime to have.”
“Really? What’s that?”
“A family, Caroline. A good, solid, sensible, and wonderful family. I have nothing except the remnants of my relationship with you and with Eric. You have a wonderful brother. You’ve turned my son into a spectacular young man. And I think you know how I feel about you, Caroline.”
“Is there any more wine in that bottle?”
He poured the rest of it out for me.
“Thanks,” I said. “Okay, Richard. There’s something I have to tell you.”
“What is it?”
“Do you know that very nice man who was at the service today? The one who brought Chloe her puppy?”
“Yes, the young man? The policeman?”
“He’s my age actually and he’s the sheriff of Colleton County.”
“A thousand pardons.” Richard arched an eyebrow. I could read his mind. So he couldn’t tell the difference between a busboy and a waiter? Weren’t they basically the same thing? “What about him?”
“I’m in love with him, Richard, and I think I’m going to marry him.”
Just then, the old cuckoo clock on the wall that we brought home from Switzerland when I was a girl, the one that hadn’t made a peep in years? Well, it went nuts, cuckooing and chiming at least twenty times.
Richard howled with laughter.
I said, “That’ll be enough out of you, Miss Lavinia!”
“I think your mother disapproves,” he said.
“Tough noogies,” I said. “I’m gonna marry him anyway.”
“Does your young man
know
this?”
“No.”
“So, there’s no hope for us, I suppose.” I shook my head and he strummed his fingers on the table. “I figured as much. Well, what about Eric? Do you think he has room in his heart for an old foolish man who’s filled with regret?”
“You’ll have to take that up with him. I hope he does, but, Richard, if you ever let him down again . . .”
“You’ll have me arrested?”
“Yeah, I’ll have you arrested. Now I’m going to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”
That grandiose proclamation had been two weeks ago, but it had a short shelf life. Eric had yet to hear from his father. No one was surprised because long ago we had resigned ourselves to having very low expectations when it came to anything that had to do with Richard. Who was it who said the road to hell was paved with good intentions? Well, he or she was a very smart cookie.
During these two weeks, many interesting things and many good things have happened as we made an effort to restore normalcy to our lives.
Southern Living
magazine had confirmed the date for their shoot and I was very excited about that. I’d been pinching and pruning all the beds in the garden like they were up for an award.
But, I’m sorry to say, Eric had an awful disappointment. Well, sorry and relieved. He went back to Columbia a week before classes started to attend summer school. He said he wanted to get a tough biology requirement out of the way and that to do it in an abbreviated semester when it was his only subject would be so much better, or so he tried to convince me. He was staying at a “friend’s” apartment and I knew good and well he was playing house with Erica. Like we say in the Lowcountry, I might have fallen off the turnip truck, but it wasn’t yesterday. And I also knew some mischief was afoot because whenever he called me, I could hear traffic, which meant he just happened to be outside. Gee. Did I perhaps think he was trying to call me without a crying baby in the background?
But it only took five days of this subterfuge and suddenly he was back in my house with all his belongings. Something had gone dreadfully wrong. Without a word to me or anyone, Amelia, who was staying home for the summer to help with the girls or at least until Frances Mae resurfaced, rode up to Columbia, picked him up, and brought him home.
I was in the kitchen with Millie, who was mixing up dough for chocolate-chip cookies, discussing Trip’s worsening depression, when we watched them pull up in the yard.
Amelia didn’t even come inside. She just helped Eric unload his duffel bags to the back steps. I knew instinctively that she was trying to avoid confrontation. We’d all had plenty of that to last a lifetime or maybe two. But I wasn’t going to confront anyone. I was thrilled to pieces to have my boy back at Tall Pines! And I was really grateful that I had stayed out of his romance and let it implode on its own.