Those We Love Most (18 page)

Sarah stirred upstairs; she had taken an impromptu nap once again, but her sleep had no doubt been interrupted by the animated calls and laughter outside. Sarah was so solemn, a quieter child than her two boys. How much of that was her personality and how much of it was living in a home absent of mirth? While mired in her grief she’d lost months of being her old attentive self with Sarah. And for the umpteenth time since James had died, she renewed her commitment to being more present as a mother, as present as she could be.

When she entered the bedroom, her daughter reached her arms up to her silently, and Maura stood, for a minute, holding her and rocking her back and forth as Sarah began to shed her grogginess. “Gimme Giraffy, Mama,” said Sarah simply, pointing to her favorite stuffed animal. Maura set her on the floor and retrieved the giraffe, tickling her daughter with its long neck as she giggled.

“Gimme some more.” Sarah clapped and Maura began to pull out all of the stuffed animals, the hand-me-downs, the ones worn and torn from her older brother’s love and the rejects that had never really been loved, the stuffed bears with pristine clothes and hair ribbons. She and Sarah played for a few moments on the floor as Sarah gave a silly name to each one of the animals.

Sitting cross-legged on Sarah’s rug, Maura picked at the knee of her jeans, wearing through to a light blue. She had always been somewhat meticulous about her clothing, and in her previous life these jeans would have found their way into the give-away pile. Maura reminded herself that she needed to make more of an effort. Sarah kissed one of the oversize bears with a pink cloth apron, and Maura leaned in to hug her. She would have to be careful, she reminded herself, not to pour everything into this child. Her sister-in-law, Jen, had tentatively asked her not long ago if she and Pete had considered having another baby. There were times Maura hovered on the perimeter of that possibility, and certainly the thought and desire had flitted in her mind at odd, guilty times. But did you replace a child? It felt somehow like creating a spare for the loss of James.

The phone rang, and she hopped up to answer it, pushing her hair back behind her ear as she picked up the receiver.

“Maura?” It was Erin.

“Hey.”

“Just checking in. It’s kind of a lazy day here and Sam is next door playing. I’m just here with Chloe. Want to come over before dinner?”

“Sarah and I are just hanging out, and Pete and Ryan are outside playing ball. Sure, I think I can come over. I’d love to, actually.” Maura cradled the phone, scrunching her shoulder to lift her daughter up on her hip with both hands.

“Sounds good. Brad’s working late tonight anyway. He has some big lawsuit that’s going to trial next week. They’ve been all holed up preparing the documents.”

“I guess I’m lucky nothing is ever quite that urgent in the insurance business,” said Maura.

“Yeah, just be glad you didn’t marry a lawyer.” Erin laughed and they hung up.

Maura helped Sarah on with her winter jacket and they walked outside, car keys in hand. Pete and Ryan had tired of the game of catch. They were playing with Rascal now, throwing a faded, half-split tennis ball at him and waiting patiently for him to retrieve it. She could spot the limp in his hip, the way his gait swung laboriously, accommodating his weakened disc.

On the lawn, Pete squatted down and extended his arms as Sarah ran toward him, holding her arms out. He grabbed her in a graceful motion, burying his face in her belly, and then looked past her, eyebrows raised quizzically as he registered Maura’s purse and jacket.

“We’re going to Erin’s for a little while. We’ll be back before dinner. I’m cooking.”

Pete’s expression clouded slightly, and he shrugged, half turning away from her to throw the ball to Rascal in the far corner of the yard, higher and farther than before.

“Sick of us already?” he called over his shoulder with an attempt at sarcastic humor. “I came home early to see you guys.”

She laughed lightly, for Ryan’s sake, but she detected the annoyance in his voice. “Brad’s got some big trial and Erin is alone tonight with the kids. She asked us to come just for an hour or so. Besides, you and Ryan are working on his arm. This is good father-son bonding.” She smiled brightly.

“I thought we could have some family time.” A bit of an edge curled in his voice, and she softened, moving toward him.

“This is important time for you and Ryan,” she suggested firmly. “He needs more of you. And Sarah needs to get out of the house. We won’t be long. I have a flank steak marinating.”

Pete nodded slightly, and then his features softened. He threw the ball to Ryan, who in turn threw it for Rascal. For a moment Maura stood next to Pete, watching the dog lope away, Ryan encouraging him, running alongside.

“His back seems better,” said Pete, and then they both silently watched their son’s boundless energy. “James loved that dog,” he said suddenly, moving imperceptibly closer. Maura could smell him, the complicated scent of Pete’s aftershave mixed with sweat, his particular man-smell. For just a moment, something more intimate hung between them. All it would have taken was for one of them to gesture toward the other, to lean in, to lay a hand or a head or a finger on the other. She stepped away, averting her eyes, and simply nodded.

“How about a cup of tea?” Erin pulled the whistling kettle off the red-hot burner and grabbed two mugs from pegs over the stove.

“I’d love one.” Maura was watching Sarah play happily on the floor with her cousin Chloe, their two heads bent over a jumble of multicolored ponies with synthetic hair tails. Next to them was a stacked Lego tower that they had built together. Erin lowered a bag of tea in each mug and filled them with steaming water. She set the milk and sugar in front of her sister. The interior of Erin’s cozy kitchen was a warm yellow, and a series of blue and white Delft plates hung on the wall over the table where they sat. A matching set of china canisters was placed in descending order on the counter nearby.

“You OK?” Erin asked.

“Yeah, tired.” Maura looked up at her gratefully. Her sister’s home felt like one of the few sanctuaries in her life right now. Erin and Brad lived in a smaller Arts and Crafts–style house that was one town west but still part of their school system. Brad pulled long hours on the partner track at his downtown law firm, and Maura was envious of how handy he was around the house. On weekends he unwound with home improvement projects like painting and replacing the back deck, and he had even undertaken a renovation of their first-floor powder room. Over time they had both made the older house inviting and appealing.

“So how are you and Pete doing?” Erin glanced at Maura out of the corner of her eye, as if it were a casual question, but she understood the intent.

“I guess OK. Something feels slightly better lately. I can’t explain it, and it’s not coming from any one conversation we had or a fight. We just seem like maybe we’re on a better track. You know?”

Erin nodded and blew on her tea before taking a sip. “How about his drinking? Did you guys talk about it yet? I mean really address it?”

“No,” admitted Maura, steepling her fingers. “That’s going to be harder. I keep taking digs at him, and that’s not the way to do it.” She let out an exasperated sigh. “I’m not even sure he sees that it’s become such a problem. There’s a big part of Pete, well, you know, the old Pete, the party guy. Booze has always been a part of his life, his boys’ nights out, all of that. You know.”

“Yeah, but then you grow up. You back off or you deal with it. Right? Listen, I know everything that happened last summer, with James, well, that was more than any parents should ever have to live through. No one could blame anyone for self-medicating, but you can’t keep sticking your head in the sand.” Erin sat back against her chair and tucked behind her ear a strand of hair that had fallen out of her ponytail. Looking directly at her younger sister, Maura took in the mirror image of some of her own strong features, the oval shape of her eyes and the squared Munson jaw line. Erin’s hair was shorter than hers, lighter in color, and she envied her sister’s skin, complected like cream, almost free of wrinkles and freckles, despite the intense sunbathing they had enjoyed during their childhood summers in Wisconsin.

“We’re working on it. We’re getting there,” said Maura quietly. She stared out Erin’s window at the trash cans neatly lined up outside the garage door, ready to be hauled out to the street.

“Sometimes I think I married my father,” Maura said suddenly.

“Do you think we do that as daughters? Marry our fathers?” Erin smiled.

“I think in some ways we probably do. Dad is the strong, head-of-the-family type, brought home the bacon, and all of that. Mom was a traditional mother. We didn’t end up so differently from her. Dad is kind of the life of the party too,” said Maura more soberly. “He’s always pouring the drinks and making sure people are having a good time. I suppose that part of him was attractive to me without actually consciously choosing it. It was what I knew. People have always gravitated toward Dad. When I met Pete back in college I probably responded to that.”

“You responded to other things too, Maura. Pete was loving and funny, and he came from a stable family. There were things there that made you guys work together. There still are.” Maura nodded her head in assent.

“But I think I also responded to what was ‘cool’ back then in college. I was young. Pete was a challenge, that still-waters-run-deep kind of thing, mysterious. And I wanted to be the one who got under his skin.” She paused, imagining herself back then. “I suppose that in the earlier years before kids, that whole package was really attractive. Life was so busy and full, so much was still happening, and we were evolving. There was all this possibility in that phase of our lives, you know? As time went on I think I started missing things, wanting things maybe down deep Pete wasn’t really capable of providing. I wanted him to hang out and really talk to me, examine our feelings together, I guess. I didn’t fully understand in my twenties how important that kind of intimacy was. This all sounds a little silly, right?”

“No, it doesn’t,” said Erin flatly.

“There are days I feel like I’m missing something,” confided Maura. “Some deeper connection. But Pete is a simple guy. Kind of a meat-and-potatoes guy, you know? He doesn’t really ask himself any tough questions. He isn’t interested in things beyond work, family, and sports. He doesn’t care about travel or learning about new ideas. He is … content. That’s a lot like Dad too in some ways. Over the years that pattern has begun to feel, I don’t know, limiting, and at times I want more. You can feel … overlooked. You can feel resentment.”

“The fact is that you married a guy’s guy,” said Erin, sweeping crumbs off the table and into her open palm. “That part of Pete was appealing to you then. People go through different phases in life, and sometimes they need other things. They change. It doesn’t mean that Pete can’t change a little too. He is a really good man, and you know that. But you have to start the conversation, Maura.” They were both silent for a moment.

“But honestly, I don’t think you can change the fundamental nature of a human being. I think we’re all born wired a certain way and you can only tinker with that to a degree. You can dress a pig up in a tutu but that doesn’t mean he is a ballerina.” They both laughed, letting some of the air out of the moment, and Maura shot Erin a grateful look. Sarah had tired of the games on the floor, and hearing her mother’s outburst she walked over and put her hand on Maura’s knee.

“Show me one marriage where the couple is always on the same page anyway, right?” scoffed Erin, rising from the table and grabbing a bag of pretzels on the counter for her niece. “That’s not real life, and you know it. There are times I want to strangle Brad, just hang him up by his necktie in the garage,” and they laughed again.

“But at least he brings out the trash cans and lines them up.” Maura gestured out the window toward the neat row of cans in front of the garage.

“Brad?” Erin laughed. “That was me, who are you kidding?”

“Do you ever think about what it would have been like if you’d married someone other than Brad?” Maura asked nonchalantly, gathering her coat from the chair back and searching for where she’d set her purse and Sarah’s coat.

“Sure. Who hasn’t? But I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about who. If you married someone else then everything about your life now would be different, especially the fact that you’d have completely different kids, and I can’t even imagine that.” Erin looked down uncomfortably before glancing back at Maura. Her comment seemed not to have registered. “You’re not thinking about that now, are you?” she asked. “Marrying someone else?”

For just a moment, the urge to confess her relationship with Art dangled enticingly in the forefront of Maura’s brain. It would be so tempting, so relieving to tell the person in the world that knew her best all that had transpired. Everybody needed to tell at least one person a secret, was how the saying went. It would feel like a burden lifted. But something stopped her. What she had with Art was finished. No matter what Erin thought about Pete and his behavior, he was still her brother-in-law, and she loved him too. Nothing good could come from this admission, especially to her sister. This transgression was too close to home, and she let the moment pass.

Standing in snow boots and Roger’s old down ski jacket, Margaret surveyed her frozen garden with the remains of the cigarette between her fingers. Fall had turned the corner abruptly into winter. The first frost had long ago come and gone, crinkling and browning the tips of the leaves and sagging the stalks. She had dug up the dahlia tubers and placed them in peat moss for the winter, storing them in the basement crawl space where the temperature was constant.