The Road Taken (43 page)

“Thank you.”

Markie stood up. “I need to hug you now,” she said. “Don’t you need to hug me?”

They embraced as mother and daughter, the flesh of her flesh, the blood of her blood, the moment Joan had dreamed of for so long and then had finally abandoned. Of course they had hugged before, but never like this. My child, Joan thought, and felt released at last, light and free.

“What will I tell my mother . . . I mean,
Peggy?
” Markie asked.

“She’s still your mother.”

“I need to have this information for myself for a while,” Markie said. “Later I’ll tell her I know. After I see how I feel. After I figure out who I love and who I don’t. She did a very bad thing to me.”

“I didn’t tell you this so you’d stop loving her.”

“I know,” Markie said. “But you can’t control my emotions any more than you could control Peggy’s. And she can’t control mine either. I don’t think she has any idea what harm she did to me. I need to sort this out.”

Why can’t the legacy of what we do to each other ever end? Joan thought. What do we have to do to bring closure?

Chapter Fifty-Four

Peggy finally, at sixty-seven—which she preferred to think of a middle-aged rather than as elderly—had grown into the person she had always meant to be. She was solid, like a tree, she thought, with the branches spread out wide: with children who had turned out pretty well with four grandchildren and the hope of even more to come, and a husband who still loved her. She and her daughter-in-law got along well enough, although they often eyed one another with mistrust; Angel’s Juan was a son-in-law she had never hoped or expected to see in her family, but he was nice to her and so she liked him; and Markie’s David was a source of pride. Despite her face-lift and her professionally colored golden hair, Peggy had hardly a twinge of regret for her lost youth, since that would have been pointless; each event was meant for its own season. She had turned into a matriarch.

She and Ed had discussed selling their large Larchmont suburban home and moving into the city, but neither of them felt comfortable with the idea of change. Only a few of their friends were still here. Some had gone to warmer places, like Florida or even California; some had left to live nearer children and grandchildren; some of the wives, widowed now, had bought small condominium or cooperative apartments in Manhattan and only came to the country on weekends. But Peggy didn’t feel lonely. She never had.

Ed was retired, although they would have let him stay on at the agency, and now he played golf and tennis regularly and volunteered as a Big Brother (big grandpa really) for poor inner-city kids. On her doctor’s advice Peggy was in a group of women who did speed walking, and on Ed’s advice, thinking that Angel must have gotten at least a spark of her artistic talent from her, Peggy was taking ceramics and gilding. She never had to worry anymore what to give someone for a present.

When Peggy looked at her mother and at Uncle Hugh she thought what good genes her family had. You could even see it in the faces of her sisters. Of course, who knew what she and Joan would have looked like if they hadn’t had a little professional help? For years now she and Joan had looked much the way they always had. And so did Trevor! Of course, he was an actor; they had to stay young for their careers. Peggy was glad that Ed had aged gracefully, for she liked him the way he was now. She still kept her eye on him, in case any of the widows and divorced women had any ideas.

When Markie told Peggy and Ed not to drop by her apartment one Sunday as they had already planned, and said she and David couldn’t bring the twins out to Larchmont either, since something had come up, Peggy thought nothing of it. Grown children had their own lives, and whenever you forgot it they moved away slightly to remind you. She and Ed went to see Peter’s darling children anyway, and then she and Ed had dinner by themselves in a restaurant that Peggy had read a good review of, the way they had always liked to do.

She remembered how she and Ed had so seldom gone to the city to share their growing children with her parents, and how every time her own mother had given her a suggestion, no matter how mildly, it had made her feel there was a tug-of-war she had to win. Peggy had given up nagging Markie—and Peter and Angel, for that matter—about anything. Her children were entitled to their own social lives. Markie was a grown woman, and whatever mistakes she might have made secretly along the way, and Peggy was sure there had been some, she was fine now, a solid person.

When Markie made excuses again not to see her the following two weekends, Peggy began to wonder why she was so busy. And after a month the wondering turned into a kind of insecure and uncomfortable voice in her head. Then she was distracted because Aunt Harriette, who’d had many complaints, died of a heart attack. “Heart, the family curse,” Rose sighed, although Aunt Harriette had been eighty-six and eventually you had to die of something. They all went to the funeral in Massachusetts, where a rabbi spoke, and afterward Aunt Harriette was buried in a Jewish cemetery next to Julius, her late husband. We are all scattered, Peggy thought.

Markie didn’t go to the funeral. The children, she said, had colds, and so did she. Peggy was disappointed, but she understood. However, she determined to phone Markie and discuss the strange feeling she had that they were growing apart, an uneasiness that was exacerbated by the recent death of her aunt, Markie’s great-aunt; not that they’d seen her so often, but she was the last of that generation except for Rose and Hugh.

“Can’t you make a little time for me?” Peggy asked on the phone, hoping she sounded coy and not accusatory.

“I’m coughing my head off.”

“When you’re well.”

“Fine,” Markie said. Why did she sound as if this agreement was a sudden, rather angry decision?

“Fine,” Peggy echoed, hoping she sounded nicer. She understood that Markie was overwhelmed by the care of two small children, but she had been through that herself, with more, and Ed hadn’t even helped her the way David did Markie. Of course, she’d had the housekeeper. But Markie had a baby-sitter, and a cleaning woman. Peggy had never thought her life was a burden, so why should Markie?

When everyone in the Laurent household was well, which took a long time because then David caught what the others had, and then Markie got it again, Peggy was at last invited to Markie’s apartment for a weekday lunch. “Come alone,” Markie said. “Don’t bring Dad. I need to talk to you.”

“Oh, good,” Peggy said. “A girls’ lunch. I’d like that.” But she wasn’t sure it would be the pleasure she was hoping it would be. There were too many undercurrents in Markie’s voice, none of which she could attribute to strain. Markie seemed, rather, to be hostile.

The twins were napping when Peggy arrived. Peggy crept quietly into their room to look at them, to sniff their clean, sweet, baby scent. Markie and David had decided Abigail and Glover would share a room until they were older, because being together made them feel safe. Markie left the door ajar in case they awoke and needed her.

“
I left you alone to cry,
” Rose had said to Peggy so long ago. “I used to let you scream for hours. They told us to. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know any better.”

“I don’t remember,” Peggy had replied. Did she remember?

“Well, Mom,” Markie said. She had bought take-out salads and put them on the dining room table, with a bottle of San Pellegrino. Peggy would have preferred a glass of white wine, but she didn’t say anything.

“I’m very glad to see you,” Peggy said. “It’s been too long.”

“Yes, well . . .” Markie said. Peggy ate, Markie picked, and Peggy smiled at her.

“Tell me what’s new, what’s been happening,” Peggy said.

“Mostly I’ve been thinking,” Markie said. “There were a lot of feelings I’ve had to deal with recently about my life. And now that I have, I want to ask you something.”

“What?”

Markie looked straight at her with such intensity it seemed she was trying to see into Peggy’s very soul. How blue her eyes are, Peggy thought, and how big. “Why didn’t you tell me that Aunt Joan was my mother?” Markie said.

“Oh, my God!” Peggy felt the blood pouring into her face; her heart was racing. She put down her fork before she dropped it. “Who told you?”

“She did.”

“I never thought she would,” Peggy mumbled absurdly. Then, unexpectedly, she started to weep, trying to choke back the tears and unable to. She didn’t even know why she was so overcome with sorrow; she felt threatened and alone. Markie seemed as surprised at her reaction as she was; both of them would have expected outrage, or at the least, excuses. After all these years, after worrying and then finally feeling secure, Peggy now found herself unable to speak at all.

“Why are you crying?” Markie said.

“I don’t know.” Certainly it was not from relief. Joan, who had always been the enemy, had betrayed her again. She should have expected as much. Joan sneaking around, trying to win over her child. Whose child?

“Did you know that Trevor is my father?” Markie said.

“
Trevor
? Impossible. She only met him when you were . . . How could that be?”

“They knew each other before. Years ago.”

“Oh, my God,” Peggy said. “Oh, my God. Did he know all this time?” Trevor in her house, Trevor laughing at her, Trevor and Joan. . . . Of course Trevor could be the father; Trevor looked like Ed. Peggy had always secretly thought that was why Joan had liked Trevor, because he reminded her of Ed, and Joan invariably wanted what Peggy had.

“No, but he knows now,” Markie said.

Peggy wiped her eyes and blew her nose into the luncheon napkin as manners went completely out the window. At least it was paper. She felt now that whatever she did, Markie would be judging her. “I didn’t expect you to be angry,” she said.

“You didn’t?”

“I was trying to protect you, Markie.”

“From what? From who?”

Peggy didn’t even have to think. It was so clear. Her antipathy toward Joan had little to do with it. Yes, Joan had always coveted what was hers, yes, Joan had been a beatnik, a hippie, a slut, an embarrassment, but that wasn’t the real issue. “Markie, I didn’t even know myself until you were ten years old. And afterward, how could you have lived in a family with both of us, knowing you were living with me and not your mother? What would you have thought on holidays, at get togethers? Think of the tug-of-war, the fractured loyalties, the questions about why she gave you up. You would have believed she didn’t want you. Or you would have believed I couldn’t be what she would have been. Every time you had a fight with me you would have run to her. Not that you didn’t already. I couldn’t tell you. Joan and I never liked each other enough to have made it work. Markie, I only wanted to protect you from conflict and questions. And . . . and grief.”

“I’m not sure if I understand your logic.”

“It’s true.”

“I know about Marianne,” Markie said.

“I’m sure you do.” The tragedy had happened almost forty years ago, but it was still unbearable to recall. Once again, just for an instant before she blotted out the picture, Peggy was on that driveway. “I’m sure Joan told you her rationale for bringing you to me,” Peggy said.

“It wasn’t a rationale, Mom, it was a sacrifice.”

At least she’s still calling me Mom, Peggy thought. “I suppose I should have forgiven Joan years ago,” Peggy said. “What happened to Marianne was an accident.”

“You never accepted that.”

“Yes, I did! But it didn’t make any difference in the way I felt.”

“Aunt Joan knows that too.”

“I couldn’t tell you the story while you were growing up,” Peggy said, “and afterward it was too late.”

“You were unfair to everybody.”

Was she? What was fair and what was unfair when whole lives were at stake? None of it had been fair. But it had seemed right at the time to keep their secret; even more than correct, the decision had seemed inescapable.

“I did the best I could,” Peggy said. “Don’t we all, all parents? Don’t we try? Your father . . . Ed . . . was appalled when he found out you had been Joan’s baby. He thought it was immoral what she did for us; trifling with life, he said, making one person interchangeable with another, playing God. It was I who was more realistic. After Joan told me, we couldn’t go back, we couldn’t go forward in the same way, everything was just so crazy after that. Markie, I’m sorry. I wish I had been . . .”

“Been what?”

“I don’t know,” Peggy said slowly. “I don’t know what I could have been. I am what I am. At least tell me I was a good mother.”

“You were.”

“Thank you.”

“When are you going to stop hating Aunt Joan?” Markie said.

Peggy shook her head.

“Never?”

“It seems silly, doesn’t it?” Peggy said. “These things happened so long ago. I suppose Joan hates me too.”

“I don’t think she does.”

“Did she say that?”

“Why don’t you ask her?” Markie said.

Ah, Joan . . . Those peaceful summer afternoons in the suburbs together were irretrievable; they had been smashed to bits the moment Marianne was. Peggy knew enough to know that she and Joan would never be sunning themselves and having ice cream together again.

“Just talk to her,” Markie said. “She has things to forgive you for too—you deprived her of me.”

I was angry at Marianne just before she died, Peggy thought. It wasn’t right to be annoyed at a tiny child, only three years old, but her tantrum irritated me. I wanted her to shut up. And Joan, the look on Joan’s face when she volunteered to go to the store for ice cream, was just like the way I felt inside. We wanted Marianne to
stop.

And then she did.

Peggy started to cry again. People won’t even let themselves be human, she thought. All these years I’ve been angry at Joan and also at myself. There were two people, not one, whom I couldn’t forgive.

“You and Aunt Joan could be friends now,” Markie said. “There are no more secrets. You could start afresh.”

“You want that, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“But we never had anything in common. Except for you, of course.”

“Do you think it’s too late?”

“Not too late,” Peggy said. “Simply never meant to be. Believe me, Markie, I’m realistic. But when I see her I’ll be warm, and we’ll both pretend, and finally maybe we’ll pretend so well that we’ll actually think we
are
friends. That’s all I can give you. Is that enough?”

“It’s a start,” Markie said.

No matter how grown-up they are, Peggy thought, your children still want to be told these little bedtime stories. She knew Joan was harmless now. She felt the relief of it. There was nothing more Joan could do. And thinking this, Peggy felt something that, if it wasn’t close to tenderness toward Joan, at least it wasn’t close to antipathy either.